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Cultural Empire and the Presence of Death -Die Toten by Christian Kracht-

  • Journal of Humanities
  • 2021, (81), pp.87-112
  • DOI : 10.31310/HUM.081.03
  • Publisher : Institute for Humanities
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : March 31, 2021
  • Accepted : April 29, 2021
  • Published : May 31, 2021

Eung Jun Kim 1

1대전대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The novel Die Toten (2016) by Christian Kracht portrays the ironic human history, in which the astonishment and hope of the human are represented with much focus on visual arts, or the cinema. In particular, the human history in the early and mid-20th century is depicted as the propaganda arts, a combination of video media and political ideologies, and the completion of the establishment of a cultural empire through the arts. However, what is evident in his work is not the great nobility of the cultural empire, but the coexistence and presence of life and death. This does not mean that the cultural empire and arts are sublimated to the sublime, But in the form of irony, it is not possible to separate the boundaries between life and death, and the sublime and the fall. From this point of view, Die Toten provides a multi-view of death that spreads in the space of life and the history of humans and humans through that death. And through this multiple perspective, it presents a horizon for critically looking at the history entering into the world war. Through the irony of life and death, Die Toten forms a critique of imperialism.

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