KJC Korea
Journal Central

Hwang Sun-won’s novel “The Sun and the Moon” (Ilwol), published in the 1960s, received much attention both within and outside the literary world for its treatment of the issue of the butcher. The novel dealt with minorities’ response to social discrimination through brothers from a butcher background. In the novel, the older brother regards his job as sacred, while the younger brother becomes a bourgeoisie while concealing his humble status. This narrative structure was not a unique pattern of this work, but rather a feature founded in many works dealing with minorities. However, in this work, Hwang Soon-won described the butcher as a person discriminated against due to his social status, which is anachronistic considering that 70 years have passed since the class system was abolished. In fact, regarding the butcher’s life during the Japanese colonial period, professional hatred was more realistic than class discrimination. Nevertheless, cracks occurred in the narrative due to the author’s narrow view of defining the butchers only by their social status identity. These limitations were not unique to this work. As a minority, the butcher was at the intersection of not only social status but also occupation, class, and gender. Only by considering this complex perspective will it be possible to reveal in detail the aspects of butchers’ existence and explore various possibilities for solidarity

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.

This article examines the relationship between the bodies and ideologies of unconverted long-term prisoners from the perspective of affect, through the novel of Kim Ha-gi. This focuses on the suffering bodies of unconverted long-term prisoners, and attempts to explore the ethical tension inherent in the act of articulating others' suffering. In Kim Ha-gi’s texts, the unconverted long-term prisoners are particularly described as shedding many tears. This affective plethora is due to the fact that unconverted long-term prisoners were controlled in a way that reduced their body's abilities as much as possible. Every time they experienced physical pain, the prisoners lost their sense of time and were thrown into moments of narrative wreckage. Each time, they sought to restore the narrative of their interrupted lives through storytelling. Strangely enough, the revolutionary optimism they show makes the observer feel cruelty. This is because the optimism inherent in their attachment to ideology constantly threatens their well-being. However, this recognition of cruelty is based on the perspective of an “observer” who has never been a “trapped body.” The conversion system was replaced by the law-abiding oath system in 1998 and abolished in 2003, but it still detains the bodies of unconverted long-term prisoners while deciding whether to repatriate them to North Korea. The case of unconverted long-term prisoners who were not repatriated to North Korea for having embraced religion and thus being considered a convert, questions who is the subject that cruelly shapes their optimism about unification. Therefore, remembering the “trapped bodies” of unconverted long-term prisoners would be the minimum ethical practice.

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.

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.

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.

The present article is based on the relationship between collective memory and identity construction within communities. Memory is identified as a fundamental element determining how individuals and groups perceive themselves in relation to the world and others. Inquiring on collective memory of a community as a starting point or main concept of research is thus of significance for understanding both modern societies and ancient cultures. The aim of the present study is to explore the connection between collective memory and chamber tombs in the Southern Levant during the developed Iron Age (ca. 840-586 B.C.E.). The so-called bench tombs were the preferred type of burial in the kingdom of Judah which emerged around the city of Jerusalem. The present article aims to explore how the Judahite bench tombs and their content, the tomb installations, artefacts and human remains, possibly enforced the commemoration and the forgetting of the deceased. The analysis draws on the distinction between communicative and cultural memory as two differing parts of the collective memory. It is argued that the tombs and their content functioned as mnemonic devices on several levels by commemorating the dead and reinforcing the cohesion and identity of the burying community.

I argue that Pythagorikos Sôkratês is a significant image in constructing Socrates in Aristophanes’ Clouds. My aim in this paper is to investigate on how Socrates is portrayed in the fictional world by Aristophanes, and what the playwright intended through such a depiction. When we pay particular attention to the Pythagorean aspects, we can understand more sufficiently the complex image of the dramatic character depicted in the play. The φροντιστήριον (Phrontistêrion, Thinkery) of Socrates has notable characteristics that allude to Pythagoreanism, which include: a substantialized school in which the members dwell together, the exclusive attitude towards outsiders, the prohibition of spreading secrets out of the community, the coexistence of passion for natural science alongside the practice of a secret ritual, their use of terminologies, and a charismatic leader followed by his disciples.

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention’s categorisation of heritage as ‘tangible’ and ‘intangible’ via their separate conventions in 1972 and 2003 respectively has arguably cemented a rather ‘black and white’ understanding and approach of heritage as either tangible or intangible. However, when it comes to valorising, registering, or exhibiting national and/or heritage in museum spaces, the intangible requires the tangible and vice versa. In other words, the tangible needs the intangible theories and stories, and the intangible needs the tangible validation of its tradition. This article examines the contents and display methods of the Gochang Pansori Museum in South Korea, a museum dedicated to the preservation and commemoration of South Korea’s oral tradition called Pansori. Pansori was officially inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2003). Before this, in 2001, the Gochang Pansori Museum was established on the grounds of the old residence of the patron of Pansori, Shin Jae Hyo, to preserve and promote the oral tradition as well as to validate its history. The museum contains over 1,000 pieces related to Pansori and various tangible methods have been implemented to provide the visitors with a Pansori experience as well as to visually and tangibly validate its tradition and history. This article looks into the importance of the tangible space, objects, and display methods in exhibiting and validating the oral tradition through the Gochang Pansori Museum. The core aim is to emphasise how the value and validation of intangible cultural heritage are dependent and heightened by tangible evidence and documentation.

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.

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.