• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.8
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• pp.73-81
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• 2018

In this paper, East Asian thoughts in Choi In-ho's novels have been studied based on Emmanuel Levinas' philosophical theories. He is a philosopher who dealt with the matter of subject formed through the encounter the others. The author of this paper quoted his ethics of responsibility, viewing that East-Asian thoughts put stress on the relationship with the others. The conclusions are like these; first, in the novel, Sang Do, there is a true relationship between the subject and the others thinking in the side of the other. Human relationship is like Sangsunyaksoo, which means when subject goes low, there appears a place the other can stay in. Second, in the novel Yoorim the essence of Neo-Confucianism shows up through Kyung thought, in which subject serves on the other in respect. That's like what Levinas said, "responsibility to others". Third, in the novel The Road without Road there appears Jinsokppuli, the central value of Korean Buddhists' Zen thoughts, meaning that you are not differentiated from me. In the times when the nation had been lost, Kyung Ho, who answered the call of people was a man who found what Levinas said, "the other who stays in me". As a conclusion the thoughts such as Sangsunyaksoo, Kyung, and Muae which show up in Choi In-ho's novels are connected with Levinas' ethics of responsibility and well shown as good examples of East Asian ethics.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.361-389
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• 2017

This essay examines 'precarity politics' by Judith Butler, a well-known gender theorist and queer philosopher, in Notes Towards a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015) focused on concepts as unchosen cohabitation of Hannah Arendt and unwilled proximity of Emmanuel Levinas. Butler's precarity politics is the condition of our dispossessed political beings with fundamental vulnerability and interdependency that cannot choose with whom we will live on this Earth. Butler's political ethics is twofold: on one hand, she examines significance of 'action'' the most significant vita activa in the public area, and 'plurality'' the condition-not only the necessary condition but the possible condition-for a political life suggested by Hannah Arendt in Human Condition; on the other hand, Butler reflects upon global precarity based on a diasporic precarious life in the social world towards freedom and equality. Unchosen cohabitation of plural humans on Earth, and global pervasion of precarity, that indicates "politically induced condition in which certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and become differentially exposed to injury, violence, and death," so called "differential distribution of precariousness," are practical possibilities of ethical and equal cohabitation of different ethnic groups in the social world. Ethical obligations or ethical demand to respond to others' suffering in distance and proximity originated from precarity politics, mentioned in Precarious Life, Parting Ways, and Frames of War, could be non-foundational joint of plural people living together globally. We should presume the 'reversibility' of distance and proximity in others' suffering, based on responsiveness and responsibility of others, if we want to stay attuned to the pain of others we never chose to live together. That is the significance of Butler's 'precarity politics' with 'ethical obligation' to accept 'unchosen plurality' of living population on Earth, and 'reversibility between of distance and proximity,' in her 'new plural and embodied body politics' or 'new corporeal ontology', through human primary vulnerability, fundamental interdependency, being exposed and responsive to suffering of others.