KJC Korea
Journal Central

Science fiction has long been concerned with the evolution of humanity, and has offered a variety of imaginings of the ways in which science and technology intervene in or control the evolution of life. This paper focuses on Kim Bo-young's early short stories, covering a range of evolutionary imaginaries from biological to mechanical to mythological. It attempts to identify the unique speculative fiction features that explore life and evolution, human, machine, and animal identity, and the nature of 'life'. In chapter 2, I analyzed how the evolution and degeneration of individual beings are reproduced based on Ernst Haeckel's recapitulation, and in chapter 3, I analyzed how the dismissal of robotics deals with the competition between robot and human species. In Chapter 4, I analyze the ontology and meaning of life as we move toward transcendent evolution by examining the fantastic situation of species evolution within individual life.

This paper examines the diversity of global Science Fiction and the emergence of alternative futurisms in different parts of the world in the context of SF world literature. The Anglo-American-centered science fiction genre has now erupted into “alternative futurisms” in various countries and regions, such as Afrofuturism, Gulf Futurism, and Hawaiian Futurism. In Asia, Asian futurism emerged as a resistance to and subversion of techno-orientalism. Chinese futurism(Sinofuturism), on the other hand, is a criticism of Western imperialism and is related to the hegemonic competition of China, which has grown into a technological economic power. Finally, by examining various alternative futurisms around the world, this paper proposes the concept of “Korean futurism” by analyzing the characteristics of Korean SF, the specificity of Korean society, and its relationship with global SF. Korean Futurism is a critique of imperialism and anthropocentric imagination, and more delicate glocalization such as “Jeju Futurism” is called for. Alternative futurism in Korean SF can also emerge in the form of new speculative fiction subgenres/ movements, such as ecological SF and solarpunk, as a response to the Anthropocene and climate crisis. SF futurisms are creating a future of solidarity while respecting differences and diversity.

Alain Badiou’s Being and Event develops an ontology based on the axiomatic set theory. Polish mathematician Maciej Malicki criticized the book for its mathematical flaws. However, most of Malicki’s critiques stem from a misunderstanding of Badiou's philosophical project, and some critiques can be sufficiently answered in the set theory. Malicki’s critique can be divided into three points. The first one is a critique on Badiou's concept of discernible. According to him, Badiou defines this concept in three ways in Being and Event, of which the second and third definitions are unacceptable, and the first is too narrow. We think the first definition is quite acceptable. The second is a critique on the concept of undecidable and of evental site; he argues that accepting evental site mathematically requires abandoning either the occurrence of an event in a situation or the creation of a truth(a generic extension). However, this concept is not a mathematical concept, but rather a concept on the border between mathematics and philosophy, and the generic extension in historical circumstances can be explained by the Mostowski Collapsing Theorem. The last critique is about the unnameable: Malicki argues that there should only be one unnameable in a situation, whereas Badiou has two, but the two concepts Malitzki pointed out are in fact different names for the same object.

Toegye Yi Hwang served as Danyang-gun Governor from January to September 1548. At this time, the rumor that Doohyang and Toegye fell in love with each other began to spread at some point. The narrative related to Toegye- Doohyang is problematic in that it is not based on a strict interpretation and response to related record data. Danyang, Chungcheongbuk-do, has emerged as the site of the Toegye-Doohyang narrative, and many people accept the narrative as based on historical facts. In Danyang, since 1987, the Doohyang Festival has been held as an annual event under the sponsorship of the Danyang Cultural Center and Danyang-gun Office. Therefore, in this study, a rigorous discussion of the facts was attempted through time series analysis and critical review, focusing on the records related to Toegye-Doohyang. As a result of the review, it can be said that the Toegye-Doohyang narrative did not have its own power in both probability and historicality.

This paper examined the influence of Korean society's attitude toward science and technology on the formation of the perspectives of Korean contemporary artists on the relationship between humans and non-humans. Chapter II shed light on the relationship between Korean society and science and technology from the 1960s to the 1990s. Chapter III analyzed the works of Nam Jun Paik, U-Ram Choe, and Jinah Roh, who were obsessed with science and technology, tackled the subject matter of robots. Through this, it could be identified that the robot by Paik was a matter in the course of the reincarnation in the context of an open circuit, born from the interest in cybernetics in Western culture. The concept of ‘Anima Machine’ created by Choe was based on the expectations for science and technology, which arose as part of economic prosperity and security policy in Korean society from the 1960s to 1980s. Roh's artificial intelligence robots were in the context of the problem of emotional exchange with machines that appeared in the chatting culture of PC in the 1990s.

This paper seeks to identify and elucidate useful conceptual tools in Floridi's philosophy of information for the development of a posthumanist discourse, especially in information ethics. Floridi is not a philosopher who claims to be posthumanist himself. Nevertheless, there are many discussions in his philosophy of information that provide important insights into posthumanist discourse. Posthumanism promotes a post-anthropocentric understanding of humans and the world by dissolving the boundaries of traditional binary divisions such as mind/body, life/machine, human/non-human, and artificial/natural. This paper argues that his information ethics is posthumanist in its elucidation of key concepts such as infosphere and inforg, its ontocentric and patient-oriented approache to ethics, and its postanthropocentric analysis of the concept of the agent.