The present study examines the transnational “Hallyu” (the Korean wave) phenomenon after the 1990s in the context of a solidarity movement of East Asian women. It also focuses on the passion for the world stage given the cultural industry was supported by the government as a “chimney-less factory” during the IMF financial crisis. Over the past twenty years and through Hallyu 1.0, Hallyu 2.0, and Hallyu 3.0, “K-entertainment” has been advocated, as a concept that encompasses K-drama, K-pop, etc. in the cultural industry. Furthermore, everything Korean, through K-culture, is being put at the forefront. However, there is insufficient discussion regarding the actions of the women who led the Korean wave. This paper examines the female fans and girl groups who played leading roles in the rise of popular culture and its transnational prominence within the context of the female agency and female labor involved. The lack of acknowledgment of their roles is linked to the current erasure of the discussion on the female youth. Discussion on “woman” is still limited to the domain of reproduction in the generational discussion that has replaced the existing nation-state or class led discussions in the current era of neoliberalism. However, since The reboot or the popularity of feminism in recent years, the interest in the female narrative, in works such as ‘Kim Ji-young, Born 1982’ has been expanding beyond East Asia to the rest of the world. Just as Hallyu was created by women in the beginning, there is a new trend in which women across national borders are joining in solidarity. As such, the present study attempts to prove that the female fan, girl group, and female youths must be one meta-narrative through a feminist reading, rather than individuals with separate identities.
This paper examines the aspects of disaster narrative, which makes the most of the concept of ‘masterplot’ as a narrative simulation to solve problems. By analyzing and comparing the remnants of ‘masterplots’ operating in the disaster narratives of Korea, the United States, and Japan, the differences between each country and social community problem recognition and resolution will be discussed. Disaster narrative is the most suitable genre for applying the ‘masterplot’ toward community problem solving in today’s global risk society, and the problem-solving method has cognitive differences for each community. First, in the case of American disaster narratives, civilian experts’ response to natural disasters tracks the changes of heroes in today’s ‘Marvel Comic Universe’ (MCU). Compared to the past, the close relationship between heroism and nationalism has been reduced, but the state remains functional even if it is bolstered by the heroes’ voluntary cooperation and reflection ability. On the other hand, in Korea’s disaster narratives, the disappearance of the country and paralysis of the function are foregrounded. In order to fill the void, a new family narrative occurs, consisting of a righteous army or people abandoned by the state. Korea’s disaster narratives are sensitive to changes after the disaster, and the nation’s recovery never returns to normal after the disaster. Finally, Japan’s disaster narratives are defensive and neurotic. A fully state-led bureaucratic system depicts an obsessive nationalism that seeks to control all disasters, or even counteracts anti-heroic individuals who reject voluntary sacrifices and even abandon disaster conditions This paper was able to diagnose the impact and value of a ‘masterplot’ today by comparing a series of ‘masterplots’ and their variations and uses. In a time when the understanding and utilization of ‘masterplots’ are becoming more and more important in today’s world where Over-the top(OTT) services are being provided worldwide, this paper attempt could be a fragmentary model for the distribution and sharing of global stories.
This study explores the method of representation of traumatic history in 2D horror game Detention developed by Taiwan game production company Red Candle through an analysis of its method of storytelling. Unlike conventional public media, video/digital games are based on interactivity, in which game players engage in the narratives. Thus, the relationship between players and the history in the game world may also change. This research investigates how the players build their way of remembering and recognizing the past in a different relationship. Detention, which was well received, not only in Taiwan but also around the world upon its launch in 2017, is set in a middle school during the martial law era in Taiwan in the 1960s. In the game, the main character encounters her lost memories in the process of following clues and game rules, and finally realizes she is implicated in the 1960s’ event. Detention was cinematized after the success of the game. The film achieved enormous popularity both in terms of box office success and criticism. In this paper, the strategy of the game’s storytelling is introduced in comparison to the film’s approach in the representation of historical events. In particular, the paper explores elements such as the interactivity of the game medium, narrative fragmentation, quests, hints and cues, and the horror genre, that asks users to understand history beyond the game world differently from the point of view of other media. Though this study, it can be considered that the digital game is a medium exploring history in a serious manner. In particular, Detention invokes the matter of game-mnemonics as well as cine-mnemonics. Compared to plentiful research in cine-mnemonics, game-mnemonics has not been extensively studied to date. Therefore, through the analysis of Detention, this paper explores the relationship between digital games, history and memory.
As the importance of documented fact has weakened in historical dramas, the combination with other genres has become prominent. By reviewing the way romance is dealt with in historical dramas, this research examines how the properties of historical events adopted by historical dramas are related to the motif of love, and how the narrative of love and romance contributes to the historical effects, with a focus on the television drama Mr. Sunshine. Mr. Sunshine is the first historical drama written by Kim Eun-sook, combining deliberately rearranged history with the writer’s unique grammar of romance. The failed resistance movement of the righteous army in the drama is matched with the love that cannot be achieved based on self-negation. The drama, which deals with the tyranny of Japanese imperialism and the independence of Joseon, fictionalizes key characters and events, transforming the desire of love into the passion of patriotism. Romance in Mr. Sunshine serves as a catalyst for emphasizing the tragedy of historical events and reconstitutes cultural memories. In historical dramas, the fictional plot of romance leads viewers to reflect on human life in history that flows from the past to the future. How does an individual’s inner feelings contribute to the historical representation? This research is significant as it is the first attempt to examine the relationship between historical drama and romance in various ways.
주변부적 관점에서 그리고 젠더적 관점에서 1996년 8월 ‘연세대 사건’는 어떻게 기억되는가. 이 질문을 두고 본고에서는 한국문학에 나타난 1996년에서 2016년에 이르는 시기 동안의 혁명의 기록과 기록이 누락한 기억들을 검토하였다. 1996년의 학생운동에 대한 낯선 회상이 이루어지는 소설들, 윤이형의 「큰 늑대 파랑」(<큰 늑대 파랑>, 2011), 최은영의 「몫」(2018), 황정은의 <디디의 우산>(2019)을 중심으로 정치적으로 비가시화되었거나 젠더적으로 배제되었던 존재들이 경험하고 기억하는 혁명에 대한 이야기를 복원해보고자 하였다. 주변부적 위상에 대한 인식과 ‘기억될 수 없는’ 혁명에 대한 호명의 상관성은, 더 나은 사회에 대한 상상과 체제 재편의 열망을 나누는 혁명의 한복판을 ‘함께’ 통과할 때에도, 혁명이 모두에게 동일한 의미가 아니라는 것을, 혁명의 순간에도 여전히 배제와 위계의 논리가 작동하고 있었음을 역설하였다. 이러한 검토를 통해 1996년 ‘연세대 사건’의 역사적 복원과 계보화 작업이 단지 학생운동에 대한 재고에서 나아가 1990년대 한국사회에 대한 젠더적 관점의 재평가를 요청한다는 사실을 확인하였다.
How is the “Yonsei University Incident” of August 1996 remembered from a periphery perspective and a gender perspective? With this question in mind, I reviewed the history of the revolution and the missing memories in the period from 1996 to 2016 in Korean literature. I tried to recover the story of the revolution experienced and remembered by those who were politically invisible or gender-excluded, by centering on novels with strange reminiscences of the student movement in 1996, namely Yoon I-Hyung’s “Big Wolf Blue” (“Big Wolf Blue”, 2011), Choi Eun-Young’s “Responsibility”(2018), Hwang Jung-Eun’s Didi’s Umbrella(2019) and Park Sang- Young’s “A piece of Rockfish Sashimi The Taste of the Universe”(How to Love in Metropolis, 2019). There is a correlation between the perception of the periphery and the name of the “unrememberable” revolution. And this fact tells us that revolution does not mean the same thing to everyone, even when it “passes” through the midst of a revolution that shares the imagination of a better society and the desire to reorganize the system. In other words, it emphasizes that the logic of exclusion and hierarchy was still in operation even at the moment of revolution. It would be said that this review is not only a rethinking of the student movement, but also a reevaluation from the gender perspective of Korean society in the 1990s.
This paper aims to identify the key features of the novel writing of Korean American immigrants and their meaning as one aspect of movement and contact occuring in the early modern period. The late return of the novels written by Nakcheong THUN in the 1930s is significant in that it restored ideas on the diversity of early modern mobility and confronted the history and culture of immigrants who were excluded from records and memories. Not only are these novels a product of the phenomenon of immigration, but they have also created a crack in the dichotomous perceptions of domination and subordination, center and periphery by envisioning it as a space that creates new history, culture, institutions and values. These novels treat the free love of intellectual, emotional, and ethical figures as a central event, demystifying Western free love, and at the same time, a society divided by various identities including class, race, and gender. The novels by Nakchung THUN visualize the active exchange between the immigrant and the indigenous community through the character of Jack, and imagines the heterotopia as a place where not for the immigrants’ utopia, but for everyone’s coexists. These novels have declared a kind of memory war on the subordinate and marginalized contact zones. The contact zones of the immigration area had been a place for experiencing extreme conflicts and discords, and at the same time, it has served as a place where various groups and communities are connected. The contact zones were common areas of solidarity and creation before being subject to division and occupation. The contact zones are far from the border or borderlands, so it is not a fixed and immutable deadlock. As a world free from central domination the contact zones have been a space that preoccupied history and culture through various encounters, and have been a community.
This paper examines the meaning of Pyeongsari, the main stage of the novel ‘Toji (Land)’ and the original experience space engraved in the lives of the characters and suggests the direction of Pyeongsari as a ‘Toji (Land)’ content platform. Pyeongsa-ri, an imaginary space in the novel, starts from the background of the original work and turns into a representative tourist space for Ha Dong-gun. However, it is necessary to provide cultural experience-type contents that visitors can experience in person. In the original work, Pyeongsari is an ideal community and a symbol of the Korean modern history of suffering and pioneering. Therefore, taking advantage of this meaning, it is necessary to prepare a cultural experience space that shows Confucian culture, women’s labor culture, and shamanic culture to draw on visitors’ experiences. In addition, the app should be developed in connection with transformed works that have been the driving force behind the reorganization of Pyeongsari, and education and experience spaces using augmented reality are provided on the web. This interaction between digital and reality makes the meaning of the original or transformed works contemporaneous, while contributing to the visitor’s own experience. In addition, through this, Pyeongsari can evolve into a cultural experience content platform that reflects the meaning of Korean culture and life. This paper is significant in that it suggests the direction of Pyeongsari’s space planning for the ‘geography of meaningful places’. In addition, while showing how the imaginary space of the original literary work has reorganized the space of reality, there are implications for the media content of the literary work and the terrain of the culture and arts industry.
The purpose of this article is to critically read Globalizing Borderlands Studies in Europe and North America to examine trends in border studies conducted so far in Europe and North America and to discuss the expandability and limitations of the narrative. It introduces a variety of case studies covering the borderlands of Europe and North America from ancient to modern times. It consists of a total of 10 chapters, in addition to the introduction chapter to clarify the purpose and definition of the collaboration and the short conclusion chapter on the prospects for the future of borderlands studies. This volume has some important implications for current borderland research in two main respects. First, it can introduce us we the areas and targets that the leading researchers from European and North American academia (usually the United States’) have paid attention to. It also examines the current status of borderland research and predicts whether it will be possible to study various border areas where exist in other regions (especially in Asia) based on accumulating academic achievements, as well as the possibility of expansion of so-called ‘globalization’. Second, it introduces the borderland as a conceptual space, beyond the border area as a physical space that is commonly thought of when it comes to ‘border’. Cases of “conceptual borderlands” can be applied to a number of topics ranging from an individual’s identities to the methods of governance, religions, economies, social institutions, families, labor issues, public health services and gender issues. There are, however, also some questions to be noted in the volume: the lack of consistent use of terminology, which can be considered general problems of collaboration studies; the fact that the authors still tend to understand borderlands within the imperialist discourse, perhaps because of their academic background is situated mainly in Europe and North America; the borderlands cases described here as the areas of conflict and struggle only. Nevertheless, the book is of significance in that it suggests a possibility of various borderlands studies and helps us to have better understanding of the current geopolitical situation imposed on the Korean Peninsula, which is located on the borderland between the continental and maritime powers.