• Journal of the Korean Institute of Landscape Architecture
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.42-53
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• 2023

This paper explores the recent development of environmental aesthetics and critically examines the main agendas, claims, issues, and implications of everyday aesthetics, which is emerging as an important branch of environmental aesthetics. Environmental aesthetics began in the context of cultural change and environmentalism in the 1960s and expanded in the second half of the 20th century with a solid theoretical foundation. At the beginning of the 21st century, it entered a process of diversification of objects and subjects. Having reached academic maturity, environmental aesthetics has expanded into theoretical territory considering the urban environment and the human environment, providing practical coordinates as a discourse for planning and designing urban environments and landscapes. The most notable achievement of environmental aesthetics since the mid-2000s is the establishment of 'everyday aesthetics'. Yuriko Saito, who is leading the research on everyday aesthetics, expanded the objects and scope of aesthetic theory to everyday objects, events, activities, and environments. She excavates the microscopic and sensory aspects of everyday life, which have been overlooked by conventional art-centered aesthetics, through the lens of aesthetics. She reinterprets various layers of phenomena in contemporary urban landscapes and analyzes how the 'power of the aesthetic' hidden in everyday life profoundly affects the quality of life and the state of the world. Saito examines the appreciation of the distinctive characteristics and ambiance inherent in everyday objects and environments and proposes a 'moral-aesthetic judgment' to alert citizens to the environmental, social, and political consequences of everyday aesthetic appreciation and response. This paper identifies the issues and implications of everyday aesthetics as first, the expansion of aesthetics and the ambiguous everyday, second, the moral-aesthetic judgment and the aesthetics of care, and third, urban regeneration landscapes and aesthetic literacy. In particular, the moral virtues of everyday aesthetics that Saito proposes, such as care, thoughtfulness, sensitivity, and respect, provide a critical reference for the practice of contemporary urban regeneration landscapes. The 'aesthetic literacy' is a key concept demonstrating why an environmental aesthetics perspective is necessary to interpret everyday urban environments and landscapes.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.429-462
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• 2019

This paper argues how the concept of melodrama can be articulated with the Affect Theory and Posthumanism in relation to animal or environment representation which have emerged as the new topics of the recent era. The argument will be made through the discussion of Agustin Zarzosa's book, Refiguring Melodrama in Film and Television: Captitve Affects, Elastic Sufferings, Vicarious Objects. Using a genealogical approach, the book revisits the notion of mode, affect, suffering (hysteria), and excess which have been dealt with in the existing studies of melodrama. In chapter one, he broadens the concept of melodrama as a mode into the means of redistribution of suffering across the whole society in the mechanism of the duo of evil and virtue. It is the opposition of Brooks's argument in which melodrama functions as the means of proving the distinction between evil and virtue. Chapter two focuses on the fact that melodrama is an elastic system of specification rather than a system of signification, with the perspective of Deleuzian metaphysics. Through the analysis of Home from the Hill (Vincente Minnelli, 1959), this chapter pays attention to an 'affect' generated by the encounters between the bodies and the Mise-en-Scène as a flow not of a meaning but of an affect. Chapter three argues that melodrama should reveal an unloved (woman's) suffering, opposing the discussion on the role of melodrama as the recovery of moral order. Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995), dealing with female suffering caused by the industrial and social environment, elaborates on the arguments on melodrama in relation to female hysteria with ecocritical standpoints. The rest of the two chapters discusses the role of melodrama for the limitation and extension of the notion of the human through 'animal' and 'posthuman' melodrama. It argues that the concept of melodrama as 'excess' and 'sacrifice' blurs the boundary between human and inhuman. In summary, although the author Zarzosa partly agrees with Peter Brook's notion of mode, affect and sufferings,he elaborates the concept of melodrama, by articulating philosophical arguments such as Deleuzianism, feminism, and posthumanism (Akira Lippit and Carry Wolf) with the melodrama. Thefore, Zarzosa challenges the concepts of melodrama led by Brooks, which had been canonical in the field.

• (The) Research of the performance art and culture
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• no.42
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• pp.47-75
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• 2021

This thesis looks into the interpretation of the Korean War and mystery genre in Korea in the 1970s by analyzing the special drama , in which the theme was directly related to the Korean War, airing through MBC in 1979. It begins by finding the change in direction in the 1970s when the world of TV was dictated through the heavy censorship and the memory of the war by the government. It also looks at the intentions of the producer who was taking in the new way and the viewers who also accepted this drama and its reflections. In order to gain some insights into these issues, it compares between the drama "The Last Witness" and the original novel by Seong-jong Kim who holds the same time to see the way in which this is dramatized. The drama, "The Last Witness", was produced with a plan to generate a high-quality special drama which combined both artistry and sense of purpose. Nevertheless, as watching TV became a leisurely past-time during this period, TV dramas become more aggressive and suggestive in order to attract viewers. This ultimately was encored with obstacles due to the regime and the heavy censorship at the time. The genre of special drama that is well known in South Korea, is designed as an art form to satisfy both their unique artistry and its purpose. The conflict is seen between the key elements of the artistic drama crated by the producers and the 'encouraged' elements that often are needed to engage the viewers. Thus, more often than not, special dramas defeat the original intention of national harmony, encouraged by the regime. This is due to the 'novelty' aspect which grows from the effort of bringing enjoyment to viewers whilst also trying to achieve the artistic drama to life. Alongside this, crime element in this drama is designed in a way that visually embodies the process of deduction, becoming a new possibility to secure the reality of the times. However, it was also a paradoxical existence since it was indicated as an example of unrefined culture that lost its original intention. In that way, it is worth to think that detective suspense stories, which were not popular in Korea, influenced viewers as a tv drama series in the 1970s through the various elements that compose the genre. They went through a process of transplantation and acceptance whilst also attempting to satisfy the viewers and their encouraged elements to engage them. As is well known, crime drama in Korea has its own style by mixing anticommunism and detective reasoning. This combination is found in the way in which the genre naturally forms through the elements selected and excluded in the dramatization of "The Last Witness". The point is that the special drama "The Last Witness" can be seen as an intermediate form that shows the tendency of transformation from the detective reasoning form alongside the crime aspects as TV dramas began to include anticommunism messaging and investigation in the 1970s. In conclusion, when the detective reasoning is used as an element in a TV drama, it shows the trust of the public system and it constantly seeks the possibility of circumventing the political interpretation. The memories of the war is seen as a tool that neutralizes the dismal imaginations inscribed on the dark side of society and the system. As a result, "The Last Witness", broadcasted at the end of the Yushin regime in Korea, is a strange result which combines the logic of a special drama and the encouraged characteristics of television dramas. The viewers' desire which is the discussion about the hidden traces from the texts needs to be restored again.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.33
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• pp.31-62
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• 2019

The purpose of this article is to study on the Daesoon Cosmology of the Correlative Relation between Mugeuk and Taegeuk. Daesoon cosmology is a cosmology based on the juxtaposition between the Gucheon Sangje and the world. In this article, I would like to say that this theory in Daesoon Thought was developed in three stages: the phase of the Mugeuk Transcendence of Gucheon Sangje, the stage of the Taegeuk Immanence, and the phase of the Grand Opening of the Later World between Mugeuk and Taegeuk as a correlative gentle reign. First of all, the phase of the Mugeuk Transcendence of Gucheon Sangje has been revealed as a yin-yang relationship. The stage of the Taegeuk Immanence represents the togetherness of harmony and co-prosperity between yin and yang, and the phase of the Grand Opening of the Later World between Mukeuk and Taegeuk refers to the unshakable accomplishment of its character and energy. It will be said that this is due to the practical mechanism in the correct balance of yin-yang making a four stage cycle of birth, growth, harvest, and storage. In addition, the Daesoon stage of the settlement of yin and yang is revealed as a change in the growth of all things and the formation of the inner circle. The mental growth reveals the characteristics of everything in the world, each trying to shine at the height of their own respective life as they grow up energetically. The dominant culture of cerebral communion renders a soft and elegant mood and combines yin and yang to elevate the heavenly and earthly period through transcendental change into sympathetic understanding. The stage of the Grand Opening of the Later World between Mugeuk and Taegeuk is one of the earliest days of the lunar month and also the inner circle of Taegeuk. It is in line with Ken Wilbur's integrated model as a step to the true degrees to develop into a world with brightened degrees. It is a beautiful and peaceful scene where celestial maidens play music, the firewood burns, and the scholars command thunder and lightning playfully. Human beings achieve a state of happiness as a free beings who lives as gods upon the earth. This is the world of theGrand Opening of the Later World between Mugeuk and Taegeuk. Daesoon Thought was succeeded by Dojeon in 1958, when Dojeon emerged as the successor in the lineage of religious orthodoxy and was assigned the task of handling Dao in its entirety. In addition, Daesoon is a circle and represents freedom and commonly shared happiness among the populous. Cosmology in the Daesoon Thought will enable us to understand deep dimensions and the identity of members as individuals within an inner circle of correlation between transcendence and immanence. This present study tries to analyze the public effects philologically and also the mutual correlation by utilizing the truthfulness of literature and rational interpretation. The outlook for the future in Daesoon Thought also leads to the one-way communication of Daesoon as a circle.