• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.38
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• pp.215-243
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• 2015

This paper looks at the literary mood of southwestern Russia in the late Russian Empire, while examining the writers of this area and their literary tendencies. Southwestern literature was formed in the late Russian Empire, and prospered centering around Odessa. Because of the uniformity in the Soviet culture, however, it could not stay alive but disappeared in the history of Russian literature. Odessa, the center of southwestern literature was a multiracial region unlike other Russian cities. A unique culture was created, therefore, combining the western European culture and local ethnicity. Jews in Odessa could enter into the Russian society and assimilate naturally. They could utilize their talents as a strength to enrich the Russian culture without giving up their cultural heritage. For example, in lingual aspects, using Yiddish was not against the Russian culture. In addition, it contributed to interesting new coinages and led to efforts among writers to minimize the gap between the two languages. Many Jewish writers showed special interest not only in Yiddish but also in French, German and other languages. Therefore, they took the lead in translating and introducing west classics. As evident in the way Yiddish language was formed, mixing their language with other languages enabled jews to soak their way into other cultures naturally. Their yearning for the Russian and western European cultures, combined with their unique sense of humor, led to generic twists and problematic experiments. From another point of view, it is also unusual that southwestern literature diversified locational settings and heroic characters in literary works. European style heros, appearance of multiracial people, pain or waggery experienced by Jews in their assimilation process, thrilling revenge to unfair violence of Russians, and espiegle swindlers are the new domains that southwestern literature pioneered. In summary, southwestern literature was formed in a heterogeneous cultural climate, which was entirely different from the Russian Empire. In this regard, it was in deviation from the Russian literary tradition. From the Soviet point of view, it existed as a heresy which was against the Russian Empire.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.149-167
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• 2008

Korea has persisted in the notion of "ethnic nationalism." That is "one race, one people, one language" as a homogeneous entity. This social ideal of unity prevails, even in overseas Korean communities formed by voluntary and involuntary displacement in the turmoil of modern history: communities made intermittent with the Japanese colonial occupation and with postcolonial encounters with the West. Given that the Korean people suffered from the trauma of deprivation of the language caused by the loss of the nation, nation has been equated with the language. Accordingly, "these bearers of a homeland" are also firm Korean language holders. The linguistic patriotism of unity based on the intertwining of "mother tongue" and "father country" has become prevalent in the collective memory of the people of the Korean diaspora. Korean American literature has grappled with this concept of the national history of Korea and the Korean language. The aesthetics of Korean American literature has been marked by an influx of literary resources of 'Korea' in sensibilities and structure of feelings; Korean myth, folk lore, songs, humor, traditional stories, manners, customs and historic moments. An experimental use of the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, written down as pronounced, provides an ethnic flavor in the midst of the English texts. Despite its national framework of mind, however, Korean American literature as an interstitial art reveals a keen awareness of inbetweenness, and transnational hybrid identities. By exploring the complex interrelationships of cultural and linguistic boundary-crossing practices in Korean American literature, this paper argues that the poetics of the Korean diaspora challenges the closed structure of identity formation, and offers a transnational sphere to deconstruct a rigidly demarcated national ideology of "one race, one people, one language," for the world literary history.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.19-27
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• 2023

This paper is aimed at exploring a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural trianglulation of Black, White, and Korean American race relations connected to a large-scale disturbance in the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The second generation Korean American Steph Cha's Your House Will Pay (2019) focuses on a social portrait of the racially marginalized beings as Korean immigrant merchants and African American native consumers. This family saga explores issues resulting from racial hierarchy, racialized stereotypes, and historical marginalization in the internalized sociometry of race and class inequality. This work grapples with issues involved in a sociocultural web of racial triangulation under the white dominant structure, and ensuing intergroup conflicts of social minorities in the economic geography of urban space. It opens up civil discussions for transracial, transethnic, and transcultural interactions and coexistence. It ultimately leads to extending young people's minds for a deep understanding of the socioecomonic landscape of racial matrix, and enhancing the cultural literacy for a better awareness of social empathy and the communal respect of life.