2026, Vol.83, No.2

Entanglements of the Hybrid Subject and Nonhuman Agency: Corneille’s La Conquête de la Toison d’or and Euripides’ Medea

Jang Youngji | 2026, 83(2) | pp.9~41 | number of Cited : 0

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The Human and the Supernatural, the Aesthetics of the Boundary: A Study of Psyché by Molière

Shin, Eunyoung | 2026, 83(2) | pp.43~77 | number of Cited : 0

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The Ghostly and the Spectral in the Theatre of Bernard-Marie Koltès: Return to the Desert

유가빈 | 2026, 83(2) | pp.79~114 | number of Cited : 0

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Puppet Agency and Expanded Assemblage in The Walk and The Herds

정산희 | 2026, 83(2) | pp.115~139 | number of Cited : 0

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This paper examines the street theatre productions The Walk and The Herds from the perspective of New Materialism. These large-scale public art projects feature puppets representing a refugee child and displaced wild animals traversing thousands of kilometers across cities and national borders. Both works transcend the confined space of the traditional theatre, expanding into events through the dynamic interactions between human and nonhuman entities. By adopting Jane Bennett’s concept of assemblage as a theoretical framework, this study reconceptualizes the puppet not as a passive medium conveying human intent, but as an actant endowed with its own vitality. The paper analyzes the puppet-puppeteer relationship as an entanglement of interacting actants rather than a hierarchical subject-object structure. It demonstrates how the materials and structural compositions of the puppets possess “thing-power,” actively participating in the production of meaning in performance. Furthermore, by focusing on the format of mobile street theatre, the study explores how variable actants ― such as sites, audiences, and environmental conditions encountered during the cross-border journey ― intervene in and reconfigure the puppet-puppeteer assemblage, allowing new meanings to emerge. On this basis, the paper identifies the ontological, political, and ethical significance of puppets within these works. Ultimately, this discussion asserts that puppetry is not merely a representational strategy rather, the agency of matter contributes to the production of meaning. By reconfiguring excluded and marginalized beings ― such as refugees and nonhuman animals ― these performances operate as performative practices that disrupt existing social hierarchies. Consequently, this study confirms that new materialist perspective is an effective framework for puppet theatre research, proposing a new aesthetic that redefines the relationship between human and nonhuman actants.

Two Phases of Exile Poetry in Jukdang Sin Yu (申濡): Focusing on the Collapse and Reconstruction of an Individual

kim-myo-jung | 2026, 83(2) | pp.143~176 | number of Cited : 0

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This study examines the two distinct phases manifested in the exile poetry of Jukdang Sin Yu (申濡), focusing on his experiences of banishment (yubae) and subsequent relocation (ibae). Centering on the sections Cheongwonrok (淸源錄) and Dosolrok (兜率錄) in the Jukdangjip (竹堂集), this article analyzes selected exile poems in relation to his life and literary world. The second section first outlines Sin Yu’s life and, drawing upon records from the Hyojong Sillok (孝宗實錄), reconstructs the circumstances of his banishment in 1657 and his later transfer to Cheonan. It also examines the compilation structure of the Jukdangjip and the arrangement of exile poems within it. The following section then explores Sin Yu’s exile poetry through the dual framework of collapse and reconstruction. In the phase of collapse, early exile poems reveal a gradual recognition of reality intertwined with selfmocking sentiment, reflecting the destabilization of his former life order. Notably, tensions between dream and reality, as well as between worldly ambition and reclusion, highlight a conflicted self-awareness. In contrast, the phase of reconstruction is illuminated through poems of gratitude composed in response to gifts received. By analyzing these poems, the study demonstrates how the act of receiving goods functioned as a medium through which Sin Yu reaffirmed his existence within a network of relationships. While the poems in Cheongwonrok reflect a process of rediscovering the self amid disorientation, those in Dosolrok more clearly portray the rebuilding of life after relocation. By examining the phases of collapse and reconstruction as a continuous process, this study offers a multidimensional understanding of how Sin Yu established his own intellectual and emotional framework within the exceptional condition of exile.

The Contested Validity of the Eulsa Protectorate Treaty: Diplomatic Tensions over the Exequatur for the Russian Consul-General in Korea

Jeeye Song | 2026, 83(2) | pp.177~224 | number of Cited : 0

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Categorization of ‘Nongmin’ (農民) within the Expansion of the Concept of ‘Nodong’ (勞動) in the Early 1920s

KWAG HANNAH | 2026, 83(2) | pp.225~259 | number of Cited : 0

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Female Narratives and Ruptures in the Komin (Imperialization) Project: Focusing on Sakaguchi Reiko’s “The Cheng Family” (1941)

SHIN MIN YOUNG | 2026, 83(2) | pp.261~294 | number of Cited : 0

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This study re-examines Sakaguchi Reiko’s novel “The Cheng (Zheng in pinyin) Family”, a work centered on a three-generation imperialization (Kōminka) project, as a record of narrative fissures occurring at the nexus of colonial power discourse and gender politics. By focusing on the illogical leaps and narrative surpluses within the text, this paper aims to demonstrate the ruptures caused when the empire’s imperialization project collides with the lived experiences of women. The stories of the three women in the Cheng family ― Yu, Sayo, and Cuixia ― intervene disruptively in the rigid imperialization narrative constructed by three generations of men, creating cracks in its foundation. Yu adheres to a symbolic worldview, refusing to comply with the empire’s progressive and linear concept of time. Although her mourning is dismissed as pre-modern superstition, this space of surplus paradoxically becomes an internal territory of Taiwan that the empire fails to fully occupy. Sayo, the Japanese wife, demonstrates the hollowing out of existence and alienation through her depression and silence; her isolation serves as a stark indicator of the bankruptcy of imperial ideology. Meanwhile, Cuixia delays the completion of the imperial narrative by adhering to the private sphere and rejecting reproduction. Her self-preservation proves that the imperial attempt to exert total control over an individual’s life is inevitably bound for failure. Crucially, the voices and silences of these women do not stem from intentional resistance by the author. Instead, they are symptomatic fissures that leak out from the gaps in the text — a result of the fundamental incompleteness inherent in the patriarchal imperialist project itself. While the male narratives converge toward the abstract ideal of Hakkō Ichiu (Eight Corners of the World Under One Roof), the female narratives remain as remainders in the gaps. In doing so, they function as powerful narrative devices that obstruct the completeness of the imperial discourse and expose its underlying deceptiveness.

An Examination of the Construction of Kim Il Sung’s Cultural Heritage Protection ‘Leadership’ Narrative before the Korean War

Nam Bora | 2026, 83(2) | pp.295~330 | number of Cited : 0

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This thesis aims to analyze the actual conditions of cultural heritage protection and management from the immediate post-liberation period, when the North Korean regime was first established, to the period preceding the Korean War, and to examine the gap between these historical realities and the Kim Il Sung ‘Leadership’ narrative constructed in later years. Since the enactment of The Law on the Protection of Cultural Heritage in 2012, North Korea has strengthened policies for the protection and management of ‘national heritage,’ including intangible cultural heritage, while explaining their origins by linking them to Kim Il Sung’s ‘Leadership’ in the immediate aftermath of liberation. Through a comparative analysis of materials produced prior to the Korean War and those published in later periods, this study elucidates how North Korea reconstructed its cultural heritage protection narrative. Contemporary documents indicate that, during the early stage of North Korea’s regime formation, heritage protection activities were concentrated on legal and administrative measures centered on tangible cultural heritage, such as the enactment of regulations and the establishment of management organizations, while references to Kim Il Sung’s public guidance in this area remained limited. From the 1980s onward, however, North Korea retroactively revised museum founding dates to align with Kim Il Sung’s on-site guidance or excavated preservation anecdotes related to ‘Cheongam-dong Toseong,’ thereby constructing an image of Kim Il Sung as a ‘guardian of cultural heritage.’ In addition, the subsequent disclosure or revision of Kim Il Sung’s ‘works’ can be interpreted as an effort to endow policies for the protection and management of ‘national heritage’ with historical depth and authority. Accordingly, the ‘Leadership’ narrative of Kim Il Sung’s cultural heritage protection should be understood not only as an exercise in embellishing the past but also as the construction of a historical foundation intended to promote the legitimacy and orthodoxy of The Law on the Protection of National Heritage and ‘national heritage’ in the era of Kim Jong Un.

Spatial Transformation in the Kim, Jingyu* Adaptation of “The Myth of Ssaritgol” and the Figuration of a ‘Failed Myth’

JINGYU KIM | 2026, 83(2) | pp.331~359 | number of Cited : 0

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This study aims to analyze how the spatial transformation that occurs in the adaptation of Sunwoo Hwi’s novella “The Myth of Ssaritgol” into Lee Man-hee’s film of the same title alters the thematic consciousness and narrative structure of the two works, and to elucidate the significance of that transformation. The novella constructs the myth of an ideal community impervious to ideology and violence, grounded in the geographical closure of a valley surrounded by steep mountains on all sides. This primordial closure is the essential condition enabling the myth of ‘no one dying’ even amid the Korean War. In the film, however, the relocation of the setting to a coastal village on the West Sea fundamentally transforms the nature of the space. The closure foregrounded in the film is not topographical but situational — produced by military occupation — and this transformation is the structural reason why the novella’s myth is inevitably destroyed in the film. The salt farm, the central setting of the film, carries a dual meaning. Drawing on the historical context of communal salt farms established through refugee resettlement projects in the 1950s and 1960s and the cooperative movements shared by both Koreas, the salt farm in the film briefly opens a possibility of communication that transcends ideological antagonism. The scene in which the North Korean officer Pyo Mun-won admires the collective operation of the salt farm represents a moment in which ideological hostility is temporarily dissolved and shared identity is confirmed. Yet this possibility of communication collapses in the face of the extreme conflict generated by war and the deception and violence driven by Pyo’s personal hatred and desire for revenge. The mise-en-scène — in which the salt farm, previously represented as an open space, is visually divided by the physical barrier of an embankment and transformed into an enclosed battlefield — cinematically renders this tragic reversal. Where existing scholarship has focused on the film’s reflection of reality within the binary of ‘unrealistic novella’ versus ‘realistic film,’ this study demonstrates that the core of that realism lies in the spatial transformation itself, and concretely establishes that the salt farm is historically grounded in the communal salt farms that actually existed. Furthermore, through a comparison of the production registration documents and the censorship records, this study confirms that the salt farm — absent from the original production plan — became the central setting of the completed film, and that the production was revised in a direction that foregrounded the tragedy of war.

Fragmented Labor: The Struggles of Small Lives after the Disjunction between Jik (職) and Eop (業)

Kim Whasoon | 2026, 83(2) | pp.361~414 | number of Cited : 0

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The Subjective World and Narrative Identity: A Narrative Analysis of People with Dementia in Literature and Film

Woojong Moon | 2026, 83(2) | pp.415~440 | number of Cited : 0

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A History of Subtraction, Written by Addition Review of Ch’ŏllima Pukhan Yŏnghwa: 1945–1973 by Han, Sang-eon

Soo-Ryong Jo | 2026, 83(2) | pp.443~452 | number of Cited : 0

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A Great Achievement Forged by Insight and Devotion Review of Park Chunghee Ideology by Hwang, Byoungjoo

Kunwoo Kim | 2026, 83(2) | pp.453~463 | number of Cited : 0

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Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University 2024 KCI Impact Factor : 0.69

2026, Vol.83, No.2