2024, Vol.81, No.1

The Cultural History of Butchers through Hwang Soon-won’s “The Sun and the Moon” (Ilwol)

Kim, Jonguck | 2024, 81(1) | pp.9~32 | number of Cited : 0

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The Mission of the Student Soldiers and the Fate of the ‘Comfort Women’

LEE JIEUN | 2024, 81(1) | pp.33~65 | number of Cited : 0

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This article analyzes Kim Sung-jon’s novel “The Eyes of Dawn” to examine how student soldiers and ‘comfort women’, who were forcibly mobilized in the imperial war, are given different historical and social positions through the post-liberation and the Korean War. At the end of the Japanese colonial period, student soldiers and ‘comfort women’ have a sense of solidarity as colonial peoples despite the asymmetric power relationship of ‘comfort women’ in the wartime violence organization called wianso (慰安所, brothels). However, the solidarity formed as a counterpoint to the empire had no choice but to change according to the dynamics of ‘imperial-colonial’. In the post-liberation period, student soldiers advance as the subject of the historical ‘mission’ of nationbuilding, but ‘comfort women’ are again subordinated to the woman’s ‘fate’. At this time, the novel’s strategy to start a new era with a new generation reorganizes the structure of the confrontation between left and right wings during the post-liberation into ‘student soldiers vs. student soldier’. Through this, colonialism that has been passed down from those from the Japanese military is eliminated. These narratives show that ‘comfort women’, who were removed from the solidarity of the colonial people, were excluded from the present history by becoming a symbol of the past. In addition, it shows a mechanism by which the Allied/Korean military ‘comfort women’ that continued to exist on the Korean Peninsula were concealed. This article reveals that ‘comfort women’ were omitted from the representation of young people at the end of the Japanese colonial period represented by ‘student soldier’. Furthermore, it critically examines the paradoxical mechanism of ‘politics of memory’ in which by becoming a ‘symbol’ of history, one is excluded from history.

Unconverted Long-Term Prisoners, the Life of the “Trapped Body,” and Affect

Lee So-young | 2024, 81(1) | pp.67~104 | number of Cited : 0

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Yu Mi-ri’s Linguistic Consciousness and Writing of ‘Porosity'

Kim, Jiyoon | 2024, 81(1) | pp.105~141 | number of Cited : 0

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This article aims to identify the characteristics of language consciousness and writing in Yu Mi-ri’s novels. What could be noted in the author’s early autobiographical writings, including the essay “The Cradle of the Waterfront”, was the identity of ‘Zainichi’ that motivated Yu Mi-ri to write. What made her dignity vulnerable were things related to microscopic socialization processes and daily life, such as voice. However, it is difficult to say that this fact has made her dignity less vulnerable. This is also because it is a political thing that makes people recognize the role of power in social interrelationships. Based on a sensitive self-consciousness of language, Yu Mi-ri considered ‘how’ to write it rather than ‘what’ the attack was inflicted on her. Through his first novel, “Fish Swimming on a Stone”, She asks a speaker who does not speak Korean in the mother tongue whether it is possible to reproduce Korean perfectly in imitation. The artist recognizes that such imitation is impossible as a diaspora in Japan, but at the same time suggests that such imitation is unnecessary by showing a hybrid language notation method beyond the range that perfect imitation reproduction can express. At the same time, “The Far Side of August” starts with a writer’s desire to rebuild her past by using her foreign grandfather, who is the origin of her social identity in Japan, as a real model. However, what the novel draws attention to in the process is another minority individuals who have not been given a voice. The novel gives up the desire to complete the complete narrative and penetrates many people’s voices into the narrative. Although the author did not successfully complete the original plan, it can be said that the novel was completed in a way that illuminates minority individuals that are more suitable for writing in a more prehistoric way.

Recipes for Ghosts: Korean American Memory and Representation of the Korean War through Grace M. Cho’s Tastes Like War

Na Boryeong | 2024, 81(1) | pp.143~179 | number of Cited : 0

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This paper examines Grace M. Cho’s Tastes Like War in the context of Korean American memory and its representation of the Korean War. Here, memory of the Korean War is understood as an expansive concept that encompasses not only the war itself, but also a range of post-Korean War experiences that Cho’s mother is portrayed as having undergone. These experiences include engaging in sex work in the post-war camptowns, international marriage and immigration to the United States, schizophrenia, and the ongoing situation of division revealed by her mother’s remains, which never returned to Korea after her death. In order to accomplish this exploration, the paper first examines Cho’s key concerns and formal experiments in the works leading up to Tastes Like War. Following this analysis, it discusses the book’s formal attributes as a strategic approach to representing the concept of ‘becoming ghost’ through hybrid memoir writing. This method aims to make her mother’s ghostly attributes visible through the use of multiple subject voices and forms, thereby challenging the forces that turned her mother into a ghost. The paper then examines the book’s renewed emphasis on the importance of food in the process of reconsidering the mother as an agent of agency, moving beyond the representation of her solely as a victim of structural violence. Related to this theme is the ambivalent performativity of assimilation and rebellion, as well as the parodic aspect of nationalist gender discourses evident in the food and cooking practices of Cho’s mother as a camptown diaspora. Finally, in light of the aforementioned efforts and achievements in representation, the paper examines the predicament Cho faces in speaking on behalf of her mother’s Korean War memories. It critically analyses the author’s tendency to over-interpret the gaps and uninterpretable areas that result from translating the language of the minority and the unspoken into the language of the mainstream from a position of dominance. At the same time, the paper emphasises that Cho’s mother remains a ghost in both the United States and Korea today. This leads to a re-evaluation of the significance of the book’s attempts at cooking and writing as a creative recreation that transcends conventional notions of fact, originality, and authenticity.

When Gender Reprensents Narrative, a Case for Queer-writing: About Transgender Author Kim Bi

ROH TAEHOON | 2024, 81(1) | pp.181~212 | number of Cited : 0

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Transgender author Kim Bi began her work in earnest in the late 1990s through PC communications and websites. She has been an active writer since then, experiencing the period when transgender discourse was formed and their existence became visible. She has been working to expand the horizons of awareness of gender experiences and translating and introducing transgender discourses. Starting with her first short story series in 1998, she published her first novel Bitch (『개년이』) in 2002, her first short story collection NanaNunana (『나나누나나』) in 2006, and especially in 2007, Plastic Woman (『플라스틱 여인』) which was selected for the 39th Women Dong-a Contest. Unlike many queer narratives that focus on tracing one’s fundamental memory, Kim builds a narrative in a way that depicts future solidarity or hope by introducing various genderqueer characters. To this end, she uses ‘queer melodrama’ representations to construct clichéd and familiar plots, but also shows changes in identity that are not fixed through the narrative structure through the unexpectedness of the ending. The harsh harsh and naked profanity in Bitch creates an effect of liberation and self-esteem by allowing the transgender author to freely appropriate sexual symbols full of gender malice. Furthermore, it is noted that the author is expanding the scope of her work through the representation of adolescent characters and expanding the realm of time/ space occupied by queer people. This article analyzes the history of transgender writer Kim Bi and her literary activities as having the power to make us believe in the power of love and solidarity at a time when hatred, discrimination, and exclusion are becoming extreme. In doing so, this paper traces the paths through which Kim’s work has gone beyond so-called self-confessional writing, in line with recent developments in queer literary studies.

Collective Memory and Collective Burials: Iron Age Chamber Tombs in Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Judah as Mnemonic Devices

Sebastian Müller | 2024, 81(1) | pp.215~243 | number of Cited : 0

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Pythagorean Socrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds

김민수 | 2024, 81(1) | pp.245~272 | number of Cited : 0

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The Tangible Validation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Museums: The Gochang Pansori Museum, South Korea

Minjae Zoh | 2024, 81(1) | pp.273~298 | number of Cited : 0

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A Review on the Narrative of the Movie Chunhyang (Director Im Kwon-taek, 2000)

OH, Soochang | 2024, 81(1) | pp.299~333 | number of Cited : 0

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When discussing the task of globalizing Korean traditional culture, Chunhyang-jeon is always at the top of the list as its asset and foundation. There is a need to check whether the love and resistance contained in Chunhyang-jeon can survive as a cultural heritage that appeals to the emotions and senses of people around the world today. In this paper, the narrative of the movie Chunhyang, released at the beginning of the 21st century, was reviewed in light of various versions of Chunhyang-jeon in the traditional era. The movie Chunhyang is the latest film based on the traditional narrative of Chunhyang-jeon. At the end of Chunhyang, a scene was created and inserted in which Lee Doryeong and Byeon Satto (i.e. the corrupt magistrate) have a direct conversation. The conversation was the most important social message that the director intended to convey, but not only was it disconnected from the reality of the late Joseon period, it also lacked logical consistency. If we leave out the visual and aesthetic achievements of the movie Chunhyang, the film did not reach the same level of success as traditional Chunhyang-jeon in the various themes that Chunhyang attempted to convey. Those important topics are as follows: to vividly depict the scene where Chunhyang meets Lee Doryeong and makes him her own spouse at Gwanghallu Pavillion, to persuade readers and audiences of the sincerity of the love shared by Lee Doryeong and Chunhyang against the reality of social status in the late Joseon period, and to vividly convey the logical and emotional necessity that Chunhyang had to take the path of resistance. In order to recreate Chunhyang-jeon so that people in the 21st century can enjoy it, the task that must be done first is to understand the text of the works from the traditional era in the context of the social reality of the late Joseon period in which those were produced and established.

One Origin of Choseon Manga (朝鮮漫畵): Centered on the Background That Torigoe Seiki (鳥越靜岐) Came to Korea and the Influencing Relationship in Japanese Illustration Community of the Time

Song Minho | 2024, 81(1) | pp.335~362 | number of Cited : 0

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Choseon Manga (朝鮮漫畵), written by Usuda Zanwun (薄田斬雲) and illustrated by Torigoe Seiki (鳥越靜岐), published in 1908 in the Ilhanseobang (日韓書房), has been considered to be the most representative publication of the post-Russo-Japanese War period that contains a negative view of the Koreans. Nonetheless, it is the first book to be published in Korea under the name of ‘manga,’ which has drawn attention to its unique qualities. This paper aims to elucidate the circumstances that brought Torigoe Seiki to Gyeongseong (京城) and the relationship between his painting and his influences. Torigoe was born into a poor family in Okayama and struggled to learn Chinese writing and painting. In Korea under Tongam-bu(統監府), when Gyeongseong Newspaper (京城日報) was founded, he was interviewed by newspaper company president in Tokyo, and on the recommendation of Kosugi Misei (小杉未醒), who was there at the time, he got a job at the Gyeongseong Newspaper. When Torigoe came to Korea, he painted in the style of Kosugi, a former soldier in the Russo-Japanese War. He painted the most spectacular events in Gyeongseong in the style of war reportage painting, and depicted Korean customs in the style of cut paintings of Kosugi. However, he focused the spectacle value of the events and Korean customs, rather than showing the same deep understanding of Korean sentiment or history that Kosugi did. This was because he had close ties to imperialist Japanese journalists in Korea, including the Gyeongseong Newspaper and “Chosun” Magazine. He also met Kitazawa Rakuten (北沢楽天) of Tokyo Puck (東京パック), who came to Seoul to cover the story, and was deeply influenced by the ‘manga’ style. In fact, it can be said that the stereotypes of men depicted in Choseon Manga were almost entirely based on Kitazawa’s manga style. However, similarly, he did not reach the level of satire that Kitazawa did for various reasons. Torigoe was adopted by the Hosokibara family when he came to Korea in 1908 and renamed Hosokibara Seiki (細木原靑起). In the spring of 1909, he returned to Japan and continued to work as an illustrator in Japan, and in 1924, he wrote a History of Japanese manga (日本漫畵史). During his stay in Gyeongseong, he had neither the understanding nor the original pictorial style to overturn the distorted image of Korea that had recurred since the Russo-Japanese War. However, he can be understood as one of the first instances which was able to draw attention to the connection between imperialism and image in Korea.

A Breakthrough in the War of Position: A New Insight on Song Jin-woo, the Dong-A Ilbo Group, and Neo-liberalism Review of The World and Colonial Joseon’s National Movement: The Formation of Korean Liberalism, Song, Jin-Woo and the Dong-A Ilbo by Yoon, Duk-Yung

Si-hyun Ryu | 2024, 81(1) | pp.365~377 | number of Cited : 0

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Hangul, Typewriter and Kong Pyung-woo Review of Hangul and Typewriters: The Technology, Aesthetics, and History of Hangul Mechanization by Kim, Tae-ho

Cho Hyung-Rae | 2024, 81(1) | pp.379~392 | number of Cited : 0

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First Introduction and Best Introduction to Medieval Christianity Review of Medieval Times and Christianity by Park, Heung Sik

Gi moon Jung | 2024, 81(1) | pp.393~404 | number of Cited : 0

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Journal Central

Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.89

2024, Vol.81, No.1