• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.68
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• pp.130-165
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• 2014

By exploring the works of popular culture, our research aims to demonstrate that culture and politics revolve around each other. Culture and politics are not separate but are articulated into cultural politics; the process of articulation reveals various comparable areas, including contradictions and differences. Our research pays specific attention to Japanese modernity in the eight popular manga series by Naoki Urasawa. These works seemingly value peace and brotherhood, placing themselves in opposition to the logics of the conservative right wing. After engaging in a thorough reading and re-reading, however, we found three salient themes in the deep layers of the works: first, no-nationality a-nationality; second, the relationship between Japan and the West, and representation of Asia; and third, nostalgia for Japan of the past, and transnational desire. The manga series contain the ideas of leaving Asia and entering the West and overcoming modernity. Our research findings reveal that the works of popular culture, specifically those by Naoki Urasawa, subtly expose transnational desires of Japan in tandem with the tensions in international politics between Asia and Japan.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.33-55
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• 2011

In the late Japanese colonial period, from the Sino-Japanese War until the Pacific War, critical discourses on the modern were prevalent in Japan and the Joseon. Despite the absence of a consensus about the specific definition of the modern, most thinkers agreed that the modern was something to be overcome. While some regarded naturalism and capitalism of the West as the essence of the modern, some others named scientism and humanism as the nature of the western modernity. Additionally, some criticized the temporal concept of historicism and brought new meanings of 'tradition' into relief, and some others advocated overcoming 'the West inherent in us'. This study is to consider the temporality of the theory of overcoming the modern focusing on the following three notions-world history, tradition, and emergency-, and examines the antinomy of them. The first notion to consider is 'world history'. The theorists of overcoming the modern, including the Kyoto school, discarded the progressive ideology that had led the Western modern history, and instead introduced 'world history' as a new notion. Although this resulted from the imperialistic embracement of the theories of Ranke, a major positivist historian from Germany, it contained antinomy of remaining in 'history' which was the modern temporal view. The second notion is 'tradition'. While the critical mind of 'world history' brought 'time of world' into question in the context of temporal realization, the notion of 'tradition' was to understand 'time of history' itself as the modern and overcome it. The critical mind of the notion involves the attempts to criticize regarding history as a 'progressive' process and to discover tradition as 'the present past' or 'the eternal present'. However, it also contained antinomy; the 'tradition' here was a notion that was created in the modern times, not passed down from ancient times. The third notion to consider is 'emergency', which was a method to define the present time as a transition period toward a new era, relating to states of war. However, the theorists of overcoming the modern did not regard 'emergency' as a particular time that strayed from normal states, instead they thought is as 'a regularized exceptional state', namely 'a state in which exceptions have become regulations'. However, the notion also contained antinomy since the word 'emergency' connotes abnormality.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.53
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• pp.1-24
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• 2018

This following research is a study on the use of French and de-locality in the modern Korean poet Lee Sang's poetry (1910-1937). His hometown was Kyung Sung, Seoul. He mainly wrote his works in Korean, Chinese character, and Japanese, using the language of education and his native language at that time. So then, what was the spirit that he wanted to embody through use of French words? By using words like "ESQUISSE", "AMOUREUSE", Sang's French was not a one-time use of foreign words intended to amuse, but to him the words were as meticulously woven as his intentions. French words were harmonized with other non-poetic symbols such as "${\Box}$, ${\triangle}$, ${\nabla}$", and described as a type of typographical hieroglyphics. Instead of his mother-tongue language, French was applied as a surrealistic vocabulary that implemented the moral of infinite freedom and imagination, and expressed something new or extrasensory. Subsequently, the de-localized French (words) in his poetry can be seen as poetic words to implement a "new spirit", proposed by western avant-garde artists. Analysis of French in his poetry, showed a sense of yearning for the scientific civilization, calling for his sense of defeat and escape from the colonized inferior native land. Most of all, comparing his pursuit of western civilization and avant-garde art to French used in his poetry, is regarded as world-oriented poetry intended to implement the new tendency of the "the locomotive of modernity," transcending the territory of the native country.