• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.414-421
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• 2017

After the Korea-Japan comfort women's agreement, two films and were released with the audience's attention. Both films deal with the friendship of 'comfort women' girls. Unlike the existing 'comfort women' narratives, these two films are building a women's space based on a kind of sisterhood. The emergence of a new generation extends the story of personal friendship to the community level of sisterhood. In particular, suggests the possibility of a testimony that the 'comfort women' grandmother passes testimony to a new generation of women. In the cinematic present, it shows the possibility of feminist thinking of the 'comfort women' narrative. However, the representation of the colonial period does not deviate much from the existing patriarchal nationalistic viewpoint. It is typical that the 'comfort women' characters are still set with a pure and innocent girls of Chosun era.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.175-209
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• 2020

This paper examines how the cinematic representation of the Japanese military "comfort women" stimulates 'imagination' in the realm of everyday life and in the memory of the masses, creating a common awareness and affect. The history of the Japanese military "comfort women" was hidden for a long time, and it was not until the 1990s that it entered the field of public recognition. Such a transition can be attributed to the external and internal chronopolitics that made possible the testimony of the victims and the discourse of the "comfort women" issue. It shows the peculiar status of the comfort women history as 'politics of time'. In the same vein, the cinematic representations of the Japanese military "comfort women" can be found in similar chronopolitics. The 'comfort women' films have shown the dual time frame of the continuity and discontinuity of the 'silence'. In Korean film history, the chronotope of the reproduction of "comfort women" can be divided into four phases: 1) the fictional representations of "comfort women" before the 1990s 2) documentaries in the late 1990s as the work of testimony and history writing, 3) melodramatic transformation in the feature films in the 2000s, and 4) the diffusion of media and categories. The purpose of this article is to focus on the first phase and the third phase in which the issue of 'comfort women' is represented in the category of popular fiction films. While the "comfort women" representations before 1990 were strictly adhering to the framework of commercial movies and pursued the sexual exploitation of "comfort women" history, the recent films since the 2000s are experimenting with various attempts in the style of popular imagination. Especially, the emergence of 'comfort women' feature films in the 2000s, such as Spirit's Homecoming, I Can Speak, and Herstory, raise various questions as to whether we are "properly" aware of issues and how to remember and present the "cultural memory" of comfort women. Also, focusing on the cinematic representation strategies of the 2000s "comfort women", this article discusses the popular politics of melodrama, the representation of victims and violence, and the feature of 'comfort women' as meta-memory. As a melodramatic imagination and meta-memory for the historical trauma, the "comfort women" drama shows the historical, political, and aesthetic gateways to which the "comfort women" problem must pass. As we have seen in recent fiction films, the issue of "comfort women" goes beyond transnational relations between Korea and Japan; it demands a postcolonial task to dismantle the old colonial structure and explores a transnational project in which women's movements and human rights movements are linked internationally.

• Korean Journal of Heritage: History & Science
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.32-45
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• 2014

In this study, the characteristics of Mongsimjae in Namwon-si, Jeollabuk-do have been researched focusing on the writings engraved in huge stones and rocks of pavilion standing beside a lotus pond and its formative languages in the garden has been interpreted as follows. Name of pavilion(堂號) Mongsimjae(夢心齋) includes a classical scholar's spirit, refusing to serve two kings and homecoming after resignation from a government office(歸去來) of Songam(松菴) Park Moonsu(朴門壽), an ancestor who has brought to the Juksan(竹山) Park's family again. A pavilion standing beside a lotus pond(蓮塘) built in the reception garden is a gardening facility symbolizing 'Yeondang(蓮堂)' Park Dongsik(朴東式) who built Mongsimjae. The bamboo hill connected to the backyard seems to be relevant to 'Juksan', the family clan of Mongsimjae's owner and this kinds of intention can be found in the bamboos in the outer garden naturally led to inside the garden through the flower beds. The purpose for the western arrangement of the main building and gate contrary to the 'chukjwamihyaug'(丑坐未向; a direction toward to the south-southwest) of the prospect of Sarangchae(guesthouse) is interpreted to naturally attract people's eyes to the pavilion standing beside a lotus pond and to mitigate the sense of closure resulting from the huge stones located in the reception garden. Also the writing engraved in the three huge stones, 'Jonsimdae(存心臺)', implies that it is a place where was selected with heart by Juksan Park family who settled down in Homsil, Namwon after 'Haengchon(杏村) Park Jaryang(朴子良)' in Yiphyangjo(入鄕祖), Namwon and 'Jeongwa(靖窩)' is interpreted as a signature representing that it is the most comfortable house where Jeongwa Park Haechang(朴海昌: 1876~1933), the third owner of Mongsimjae, has lived. The pavilion standing beside a lotus pond of the 'Bangjibangdo(方池方島; square pond and square island)' type has no lotus for now and waterside cornerstones roughly piled with broken stones naturally mitigate the slope. There are two water inflows gathering rainwater in the reception garden other than the water inflow of valley and the upper-side water inflow was built using a high waterfall method. The middle island cut into a square was designed to use in two ways, as 'island' or 'steppingstone', according to the water level and the old name of the pavilion standing beside a lotus pond was revealed as 'Cheonundam(天雲潭)' from the engraved writing located in the side of the middle island. In addition, 'Imni(臨履)', engraved writing in the finishing stone of waterside by citing a line of 'Sigyeong(詩經)', implies 'Be a upright classical scholar who pays close attention to one's own behaviors' and 'Jeongchuk(渟?)' is interpreted as a message that desires the eternal staying of the Juksan Park family's wealth. Ultimately, the writings engraved in the huge stones and rocks of the pavilion standing beside a lotus pond are interpreted as a symbol language that wishes the heaven protects and maintains the wealth of the Juksan Park family who is the owner of Mongsimjae.