2026, Vol.32, No.1

The Evolution of the Mystery Genre as a Digital Game and the Game of Inference - Focusing on Uncover the Smoking Gun and the Integration of Generative AI

Park, Inseong | 2026, 32(1) | pp.11~48 | number of Cited : 0

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A Preliminary Study on the Database Design for Mystery Literature - Focusing on Korean Detective Novels

JEON SEJIN | 2026, 32(1) | pp.49~89 | number of Cited : 0

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Mythical Biopolitics and the Affective Geographies of Sanctuary - A Decolonial Historicization of Bear Mythology in East Asia

Doohyun Kwon | 2026, 32(1) | pp.91~135 | number of Cited : 0

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Settler colonialism produces a specific mode of biopolitics that persists not only within settler states but also within global regimes that inherit, expand, and naturalize their power. This biopolitical mode often manifests as an affective modulation of multispecies power relations encompassing both humans and nonhumans. The space in which such modulation materializes most vividly is the sanctuary. To locate the sanctuary within the cartography of settler-colonial biopolitics, this paper compares two works set in different historical and geographical contexts—Noda Satoru’s manga Golden Kamuy and Ko Yeon-ok’s play The Sensibility of a Wife. Through these works, it examines how human–animal interactions signify the (re)formation of settler-colonial affective geographies, particularly in relation to the process of making a sanctuary. Golden Kamuy presents the possibility of multispecies coexistence through the re-narration of an Ainu bear myth; however, once that myth is appropriated within the settler narrative, its decolonial potential becomes absorbed into the institutional order. In contrast, The Sensibility of a Wife depicts a world in which the affect of the “penitentiary farm” extends to society at large, where care and control overlap within a violent regime and the sensibility of rewilding is enacted. While the former illustrates a “multispecies coexistence through incorporation,” the latter envisions “coexistence through refusal.” Through this contrast, the paper argues that myth and sanctuary form a cyclical structure of historical memory and affective practice, functioning as two axes of decolonial thought that disrupt the order of colonial biopolitics. Furthermore, it explores the transformative politics of interspecies solidarity that emerges from affective reconfigurations in which humans and animals, indigeneity and coloniality, settlement and movement intertwine.

Digital Apparatuses of Affective Power in the K-Thriller Genre

Sunah Kim | 2026, 32(1) | pp.137~162 | number of Cited : 0

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The Erosion of Humanity in the Fourth Industrial Revolution - A Symptomatic Narrative of Posthuman Dystopia in No Other Choice

Gia Kim | 2026, 32(1) | pp.163~207 | number of Cited : 0

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This study examines how human nature and the status of the worker are reconfigured and placed in crisis during the technological transition of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the so-called Second Machine Age through an analysis of the narrative and narrative subject of Park Chan-wook’s film “No Other Choice”. Although artificial intelligence is not represented as a personified entity in the film, as is often the case in science fiction cinema, this paper conceptualizes AI as a technological system integrated with the capitalist mode of production. From this perspective, the study analyzes the structural mechanisms through which the film captures the erosion of humanity and the transformation of subjectivity. Drawing on posthumanist and AI dystopian discourse, as well as Hannah Arendt’s concept of labor, this paper investigates how automation-centered industrial structures marginalize human labor and devalue human qualities. The film presents the decline of the paper industry—an analog foundation of production—as a key medium through which human labor is gradually repositioned as expendable in the face of digital and AI technologies. Through a narrative in which an unemployed subject eliminates competing humans, the film reveals that the human–machine relationship is being reorganized not as one of cooperation or coexistence, but as an asymmetrical power structure. In this process, human qualities are redefined as vulnerabilities or obstacles to efficiency and survival, and the subject is transformed into an anti-human figure who has internalized the logic of the technological system. This study argues that the film does not reduce this transformation to individual moral failure, but instead narrativizes it as a structural consequence produced by the convergence of capital and AI-driven automation. “No Other Choice” dismantles the optimistic myth that the advancement and expansion of AI technologies will liberate humans from labor, and instead functions as a symptomatic narrative of posthuman dystopia that exposes how automated technological civilization erodes the existential foundations and ethical conditions of human life. Through this narrative, the film suggests that the central task of the AI era lies not in the design of a technological utopia, but in the critical rethinking and reconstruction of the conditions and roles of humanity.

The delusion of ‘conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law’ - A study on daughter-in-law's self narrative after 2015

Park Dasom | 2026, 32(1) | pp.209~250 | number of Cited : 0

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Remediation and Narrative Transformation of Historical Dramas following Changes in the Digital Reception Environment - Focusing on the Drama Bon Appétit, Your Majesty

Park Maehwa | 2026, 32(1) | pp.251~287 | number of Cited : 0

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With the expansion of digital platforms and the reorganization of the distribution environment, historical dramas can no longer rely solely on the gradual accumulation of historical causality to remain competitive. This article examines how these changes in the digital reception environment shape the arrangement of scenes, the rhythm of progression, and audience practices such as speed-watching and skipping. To do so, it adopts the framework of remediation and analyzes the Korean drama <Bon Appétit, Your Majesty> as a representative case that internalizes platform viewing rhythms despite its airing on legacy media. The analysis reveals that <Bon Appétit, Your Majesty> undergoes a process of "narrative re-engineering"—redesigning the narrative's core mechanics by transplanting the serialization rhythm of web-novel IP and the competition grammar of variety shows into the historical genre. Specifically, this study identified the structural characteristic in which the political causality of traditional historical dramas is compressed into repeating units of "mission–performance–judgment–reward," and narrative tension is condensed into the moment of judgment rather than the accumulation of cause and effect. Furthermore, it captured a spatial turn wherein the monarch's authority is reassembled from a symbol of mystery into a device of exposure, segmentation, and judgment, optimizing the palace space from a political arena into a stage for competition. By conceptualizing these variations as "narrative re-engineering" and the "aura of performative records," this study proposes an analytical framework for explaining the transformation of historical dramas in the platform era. This shift indicates that the realism of historical dramas has moved from the accumulation of historical verification to the synchronization of perception and emotional response. It also proves that the visual materiality of the <Mangunrok> functions as a new media aura securing the legitimacy of performance and judgment. In conclusion, this paper reveals that the rule of immediacy in the platform environment is reorganizing the historical drama into a performative space where contemporary desires and media play intersect.

The Hermeneutic Temporality of Digital Game Narratives - Digital Time and Meaning in Baldur’s Gate 3

Park Jangbeom | 2026, 32(1) | pp.289~326 | number of Cited : 0

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The Globalization of the “Black Spoon vs. White Spoon” Class Narrative - Focusing on Season 1 of Culinary Class Wars: Black Spoon vs. White Spoon

양진문 | 2026, 32(1) | pp.327~361 | number of Cited : 0

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This study analyzes Season 1 of Netflix’s original reality-competition series Culinary Class Wars (Heukbaek Yoris a: Culinary Class War), examining how the “Black Spoon vs. White Spoon” class narrative is structured and how it articulates with the politics of affect to operate as a strategy for the globalization of K-content. For this purpose, the study treats all episodes as primary texts and adopts an integrated analytical framework that combines narrative analysis, discourse analysis, and platform analysis. In addition, it systematically reviews a wide range of paratexts, including interviews with producers and participants, promotional videos and posters, in-platform synopses and category placements, as well as YouTube clips and promotional materials released through official social media accounts. The findings show that the “Black Spoon vs. White Spoon” configuration functions not merely as a provocative title but as a semiotic system that cuts across contestant profiling, visual contrasts, kitchen spatial arrangements, linguistic address and labeling, and the design of missions and evaluation rules. Through this system, the program renders unequal starting points visible while intensifying competitive tension and affective immersion. However, rather than developing into a critical recognition of structural inequality, the class distinction is increasingly reframed within an uplifting narrative that emphasizes the underdog’s challenge and growth and reduces inequality to individualized competence and attitude under the moral sentiment that “those who work hard deserve respect.” As the season progresses, producers reorganize inter-team antagonism and conflict into a storyline of “healthy stimulation for better cooking” and camaraderie, thereby suturing sharp class antagonism with a humanitarian message of “human dignity beyond class” and depoliticizing and obscuring class realities. At the same time, Netflix’s platform apparatus—genre/mood categories, thumbnails and synopses, and translation/localization through subtitles and dubbing—reconfigures Korea-specific “spoon” discourse into a universal format of a culinary survival competition that combines an underdog-versus-elite-chef confrontation with intense rivalry and strong emotions, positioning it in the global market as a commodifiable K-class narrative and a K-variety brand. In sum, this study elucidates how a locally situated class discourse is commodified and decontextualized within the circuits of platform capitalism, and how mechanisms of depoliticization operate through affect mobilization and fairness discourse. Furthermore, by proposing an integrative analytical framework that jointly considers class narrative, affect, and platform structures, the article aims to provide a theoretical basis for subsequent K-content research that links class, affect, and platform dynamics.

Character Archetypes in Male-Oriented Web-Novel–Adapted Korean Dramas Since the 2020s - Based on Vogler’s Archetype Model

Lee MinGyu | 2026, 32(1) | pp.363~385 | number of Cited : 0

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This study focuses on the rapid rise of male-oriented web-novel intellectual properties (IPs) in South Korea’s screen-content industry since the 2020s. It aims to analyze the character archetypes manifested in such screen adaptations and to identify the narrative tendencies that characterize this contemporary shift. For this purpose, Christopher Vogler’s archetype model is adopted as the main analytical framework. Concentrating on television/streaming drama—the medium in which male-oriented web-novel IPs have achieved the most visible success—this study examines JTBC’s <Reborn Rich>(2022) and Netflix’s <The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call>(2025). In both dramas, the hero is presented from the outset as a “completed hero,” for whom flaws and the task of growth are largely minimized; accordingly, conflicts tend not to intensify over an extended period but are resolved swiftly. In this process, the hero internalizes the function of the Mentor archetype, whereas antagonists display a weakened Shadow function that would ordinarily drive the hero toward a decisive crisis; instead, their role is foregrounded as that of Threshold Guardians who impose step-by-step tests. Furthermore, archetypes such as the Ally and the Trickster are simplified, functioning less as independent narrative engines than as reactive devices that reinforce the hero’s superiority. This type of archetypal transformation suggests that narrative strategies favored by male-oriented web novel readership—namely, the presentation of immediate achievement and the rapid resolution of conflict—also function effectively within audiovisual content. This phenomenon can be understood in relation to broader social and cultural contexts, including the fragmentation of effort-based discourse following the IMF crisis, the intensification of nihilism and compensatory desires among younger generations, and the expansion of short-form content consumption environments.

The Liberation of the Female Precariat - Tracing My Liberation Notes through Park Hae-young’s My Mister

LEE YOUKYUNG | 2026, 32(1) | pp.387~432 | number of Cited : 0

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This article examines to read Park Hae-young’s My Liberation Notes as a “liberation diary of the worker,” a text that seeks an exit from the neoliberal condition. It may be understood as an attempt to move beyond Park’s earlier drama, My Mister. The latter dramatizes the solidarity between Park Dong-hoon(박동훈), a tenured employee at the conglomerate Saman E&C, and Lee Ji-an(이지안), a dispatched temporary worker. Dong-hoon, threatened at once by his superior Do Joon-young(도준영) and by stalled promotion, is eventually elevated to executive status through Ji-an’s covert assistance. Ji-an, in turn, secures institutional care for her grandmother, extricates herself from predatory lenders, and finds support from the local community in Hugye-dong(후계동). The conclusion, in which Dong-hoon becomes head of his own firm and Ji-an gains permanent employment, stages a tentative happy ending. Yet this solidarity rests on the contingency of illegal wiretapping: it is only because the eavesdropped subject turns out to be an unusually ethical figure that their alliance can unfold—thereby revealing its structural limits. The drama thus leaves two questions unresolved: How is solidarity possible if one cannot access another’s interiority through illicit surveillance? And what if, in the precariat woman’s social field, there exists no figure like Park Dong-hoon, but only antagonists such as Lee Gwang-il(이광일)? It is precisely from this impasse that My Liberation Notes takes shape. Yeom Mi-jung(염미정), who lives in Sanpo(산포) on the periphery of Seoul, endures long commutes, mounting debt incurred through an unreliable lover, and the invisible discrimination that marks her as non-regular labor. In her effort to escape these conditions of precarity, she enjoins Mr. Gu(구씨) to “worship” her. Though scarcely different from Gwang-il in terms of social marginality and violence, Mr. Gu becomes, through the practice of unconditional affirmation and care—without inquiry into his past—a vehicle for what might be called a technology of the self: a practice by which both characters move from self-abasement toward self-regard. In this way, My Liberation Notes articulates, in a time when eros has become structurally foreclosed, a form of self-liberation grounded not in romantic attachment but in compassion that exceeds empathy. Park Hae-young’s drama thereby advances a politics as ethics, a mode of subjectivation that reimagines solidarity and liberation within the precarious conditions of neoliberal modernity.

Deterritorialization of ‘Korean-style’ and the Transition to a Global Genre: Expanded Hybridity of K-Cinema in K-Pop: Demon Hunters

Lee, Hyun Joong | 2026, 32(1) | pp.433~463 | number of Cited : 0

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Women Beyond the Frame - A Study of the Dramatic and Graphic Adaptations of Park Wan-suh’s Namok

Heo Dokyung | 2026, 32(1) | pp.465~512 | number of Cited : 0

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This study compares two adaptations of Park Wan-suh’s Namok: the 1992 MBC TV drama produced as a 6･25 special and the 2019 graphic novel by Kim Geumsook. By examining these adaptations, the paper explores how the framing strategies of visual media—television drama and comics—reshape and transform the narratives of female characters. In this context, the frame serves as a physical boundary that limits the scope of the visual image, while simultaneously functioning as an epistemic framework that defines the perspective through which the world is viewed. By undergoing the process of framing—which involves the strategic selection and exclusion of specific characters and scenes—the frame materializes the narrative's purpose. Consequently, it provides a theoretical foundation for interpreting the characteristics of female representation and the structural transformations of the narrative within the process of media adaptation. The TV drama constructs a closed frame grounded in postwar familial values and reorganizes the original’s characterization accordingly. The tension and affinity between Kyung-a and Mrs. Ok, as well as the complex desires and individual trajectories of Misuk and Diana Kim—elements that exceed Kyung-a’s limited viewpoint in the original—are absorbed into a moral order centered on the family. In contrast, the graphic novel adopts an open framing strategy that highlights women’s acts of remembering and recording their own stories. Park Wan-suh enters the narrative as a character and rewrites her own life through Kyung-a, while Diana Kim’s story unfolds across expanded temporal and spatial layers that suggest further narrative possibilities. The contrast between the two adaptations reveals how the female experiences and relational textures embedded in the original are either reduced or expanded depending on each medium’s framing strategy. While the TV drama incorporates the “beyond-the-frame” dimensions of female desire and narrative possibility into a family-centered value system, the graphic novel reactivates those very layers to foreground the continuity and expansiveness of women’s storytelling. Through this frame-based analysis, the study illuminates how women’s narratives are shaped in the process of adaptation and seeks to broaden the horizon of Korean literary and adaptation studies.

Return to the Autonomy of Art, the Classicization of the Avant-Garde — Margaret Leng Tan’s Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep

Heo, Jaehong | 2026, 32(1) | pp.513~534 | number of Cited : 0

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This study examines how the avant-garde is incorporated into a classicalized form within contemporary performance art through the analysis of the performance Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep (October 25, 2025, Sejong S Theater), a solo performance by Margaret Leng Tan. Focusing on the transformation of core avant-garde principles—chance and indeterminacy—into controlled necessity within the framework of theatrical direction, the research draws on Peter Bürger’s critique of “aesthetic autonomy” and Hal Foster’s concept of the neo-avant-garde as a mode of repetitive and analytical enactment. These theoretical perspectives provide the basis for investigating how Tan’s performance reconfigures and repositions the legacy of the avant-garde. The analysis identifies two central mechanisms. First, Tan’s lifelong obsessive-compulsive tendencies are transformed into core performative techniques. She appears as an embodied performer in Erika Fischer-Lichte’s sense, yet simultaneously enacts a meticulously calculated persona. Second, avant-garde music and concepts are framed and exhibited within Tan’s autobiographical narrative. Memories of John Cage are arranged as fixed lines and integrated into a highly controlled semiotic system, while her performance practices resemble guided enactments rather than moments of perceptual disruption. This mode of presentation aligns with Foster’s notion of “deferred action,” in which the avant-garde project is repeated, yet its repetition is absorbed into a disciplined and predetermined form. Ultimately, Dragon Ladies Don’t Weep functions less as an avant-garde performance than as a curated memoir that reshapes the avant-garde for 21st-century spectatorship. Although the signs of the avant-garde are abundantly deployed onstage, no contingent event emerges; every element converges within a tightly regulated structure. The work thus illustrates a contemporary cultural process in which the avant-garde returns to the realm of aesthetic autonomy and circulates as a classicized, institutionalized form.

Rethinking the “Ill Body” in the Post-Pandemic Era Havi Carel’s Philosophy of Medicine and the Narratives of the Body

박현선 | 2026, 32(1) | pp.533~564 | number of Cited : 0

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This paper centers on the philosophy of medicine developed by Havi Carel in Phenomenology of Illness (Oxford University Press, 2016) and seeks to rethink the body and disease in the post-pandemic era by exploring “illness” as both an ontological experience and a catalyst for narrative justice. In the processes of infection control and quarantine, COVID-19 intensified a disease-centered gaze and biopolitical regulation by isolating and datafying patients and the infected. As a result, disease became reduced to a manageable object, while the dimension of illness, including anxiety, isolation, and the rupture of relationships as experienced by individuals, remained insufficiently articulated. Taking this gap as its point of departure, this study turns to the phenomenological question of how illness reconfigures the very conditions of human existence. If, from the perspective of the medical system, disease is described primarily in third-person objective language as biological dysfunction, illness is understood as a transformation in one’s mode of being-in-the-world as experienced from the first-person perspective. Carel’s discussions of “bodily doubt” and “embodied epoché” present illness not as devastation or deficiency but as an epistemological shift that compels a reexamination of the meaning of life. Furthermore, through the concepts of the “medical toolkit” and epistemic justice, Carel critiques the exclusion of patient testimony and the processes of dehumanization in clinical settings, proposing practices that restore patients’ rights to name and narrate their own suffering. Building on Carel’s philosophy of medicine, this article further integrates critiques of biopolitics and discussions in ontological political philosophy to argue that all bodies are fundamentally exposed to others and to the environment, and that they exist under conditions in which survival is impossible without mutual care. Finally, the study highlights how a phenomenology of the ill body, at the intersection of medicine, philosophy, and the humanities, foregrounds the ethical and narrative force of storytelling. Every body bears stories from the outset, and these stories speak vividly through the illness. In conclusion, as illness is not an exceptional tragedy but a critical moment that reconstitutes the conditions of community, the post-pandemic era calls for a renewed narrative justice of the body grounded in vulnerability and interdependence.

KJCKorea
Journal Central

Journal of Popular Narrative 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.92

2026, Vol.32, No.1