• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.50
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• pp.347-370
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• 2018

This paper proposes a new direction for Comparative Literature which has been deeply Eurocentric and even colonial ever since its birth. 'Comparison' in Comparative Literature has been in fact the ideological mechanism for containing, classifying, and eventually controlling all differences in the world. Literature has naturally served as a national institution of the West at epistemological and discursive level with hidden adjective "comparative". To re-conceptualize the discipline and practice of "Comparative Literature", we need to revolutionize methodology itself based on Wai Chee Dimock's idea of "Weak Theory", Foucault's "disappearance of author", and Clifford Geertz's "thick description". "Thick description" as a methodology of comparative literature re-establishes the discipline as a field of "weak theory", defusing the centrality of linguistic identity and re-making it as a "long network" of loose and missed connections. "Thick description" poses the publicness of nation-state within "confusion of tongues", problematizes the legitimacy of modern knowledge, and puts (the western) nationalism in question. With this idea as a starting point, we can re-imagine Comparative Literature anew as a field of ceaseless discourse of longer, weaker, and thicker networks of interpretation and re-interpretation of differences.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.209-231
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to suggest the components of manuscript collection development policy for Korean literary museums through literature review and the comparative analysis of the components of manuscript collection development policies of internal and external literary museums. As the examples of internal literary museums, the private rules of material selection of World Women's Literature Center and collection development policy of National Library of Korea have been studied. As the examples of external literary museums, 14 original collection development policies from British and American literary museums have been analyzed. According to the study results, the 11 basic elements and 14 selective elements were proposed for the manuscript collection development policy of Korean literary museums.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.45
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• pp.167-194
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• 2016

V.V. Rozanov, a well-known writer and thinker, has wrote many critical essays about Russian literature and writers. The most famous literary criticism written by him is an essay about F. Dostoevsky - Legend of the Grand Inquisitor (1894), which has been highly appraised by N. Berdyaev. If Dostoevsky was the best and the most admirable writer by Rozanov, Gogol was one of the most condemned one by him. This paper, first of all, aims to analyze Rozanov's literary essays about Gogol. At this time, our subjects of analysis included writer's critical essays about Pushkin and Dostoevsky because Rozanov tried to investigate the nature of a creation of Gogol through comparative studies. Based on these analyses, we attempted to deduce an overall view of Rozanov about Russian literature. We also examined the influence of Rozanov on the later criticism.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.87-106
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• 2011

This article studies that Korean literature has been renewed to World literature-oriented in the history of Modern Korean literary criticism from early modern period to present for reflecting the slogan, "globalization of Korean Literature" as well as contextualizing the necessity, "new relationship between Korean literature and World literature". Some writers, such as Lee Gwangsoo a pioneer of Modern Korean literature and the group for foreign literature[haioei-munhak-pa] introducing World literature to Korea and Lim hwa a prominent critic of proletarian literary theory under Japanese Colonial period, have understood European literature as World literature Korean literature had to reach. Inevitably the hierarchical relation between Korean literature and European literature as World literature had been interiorized to them. Meanwhile Jo Dong-il and Paik Nak-chung who have been representative researchers of Korean literature had tried to broken down the hierarchical relation between Korean literature and European literature interiorized to Korean writers until the 1980s, with Korean literature could be accomplished to World literature meaning. Since the late 1990s Park Sung-chang and Park Sang-jin who are leading researchers of comparative literature in Korea these days, have emphasized the methodology of new comparative literature for 'universality of literature' between Korean literature and World literature, which have been the renewal way of Korean literature in today's age of globalization.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.38
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• pp.245-264
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• 2015

In this paper, I suggest methodological ways of studying comparative literature regarding ongoing discussions of world and national literature. The role of comparative literature studies has widened in the contemporary era, in which nations have become rapidly entangled and the concept of the world as a unified entity is under question. In this regard, I critically review the traditional principles of the hospitality of cosmopolitanism and the exclusivity of the borders of national literatures. Further, I suggest that scholars adopt the concept by Sigmund Freud of "unfamiliar familiarity" as a methodological motive for studies of comparative literature. Based on this concept, scholars can further develop the unique methods of the discipline of comparative literary studies for teaching and research amidst the ongoing phenomenon of globalization. They can also use these methods to simultaneously contribute to solving the problem of "comparison without a unifying category of the world," as revealed by the results of deconstructional and postcolonial studies. Regarding community-based discussions of literature, I introduce the "bridge and door" metaphor, put forth by Georg Simmel, as a key concept in methodological consideration of translation and in comparative literary studies. In this paper, adopting the metaphor of the bridge and door as an intertextual and social model for comparative studies, I define the new role of comparative literary studies in literary transnationalism, which is particularly necessary when different languages and cultures overlap and become entangled. Regarding the rapidly changing contemporary world community, comparative literary studies, as an experimental discipline, is uniquely capable of examining this kind of community, which forms itself beyond and beneath individual nations.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.1-30
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to review two books on the history of Korean literature written in Japanese, taking special interest in ancient Korean literature, examining transcultural patterns between the history of North and South Korean literature and that of Japanese literature, and thereby identifying perceptions and description patterns of the history of Korean literature from the perspective of comparative literature. This study analyzes two books with the same title The History of Joseon Literature written in Japanese by Kim Dongwook and Byeon Jaesoo. The two books are not translations of Korean books but were written in Japanese for Japanese and ethnic Korean readers in Japan. The History of Joseon Literature (1974) by Kim Dongwook mainly compares Joseon literature with Japanese literature. The History of Joseon Literature (1985) by Byeon Jaesoo, an ethnic North Korean in Japan, was written from socialistic perspectives. The two books have different standards for evaluating value of the history of Joseon literature and different perceptions about it. Due to the division between North and South Korea, the history of literature is unfolding in different ways in the two Koreas, and the two books reflect such differences. However, they have several common features. For example, they highly regard the value of literature written in Chinese characters and originality of hangga (a folk song of Silla), Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), and pansori (a form of Korean folk music in which a singer accompanied by a supportive drummer sings and chants an epic story). In addition, they both demonstrated that literature written in Hangeul and that written in Chinese characters interacted with each other as the same Korean literature. When the two books were written, the history of Korean literature had been considered a subunit of the history of East Asian or Chinese literature. However, as this study found, Kim and Byeon wrote the two books from a perspective of departing from this view based on nationalism, re-establishing the value of Korean literature, promoting Japanese people's understanding of the high quality of Korean literature, and imbuing ethnic Koreans in Japan with nationalistic pride.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.325-359
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• 2017

The works of a literary and cultural historian Franco Moretti are conspicuous in many ways. Trained in Marxism and Russian formalism, he participated in the construction of the New Left in England. Also, he interestingly interpreted the socialization of the individual through the genre of bildungsroman. Then, he shifted his research interest to the notion of world literature, and to explore its global scale, he developed his own quantitative approach combined with advanced computer technology in digital humanities. His recent publication reveals that Moretti conducted a social critique of the European bourgeois culture with his new quantitative method. His macroscopic view of literature and use of cutting-edge technology in his research inspire historians of Korean literature located in the so-called periphery of world literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the idea of world literature outlined by Franco Moretti by reviewing his method called "distant reading" and examples of such an approach. His distant reading is to construct a macroscopic archive through inclusion of forgotten works from literary history and to analyze morphological patterns that frequently appear in the archive. His book entitled Graphs, Maps, Trees is a collection of examples of which he applied distant reading. By delving into such cases, I will raise questions about Moretti's macroscopic perspective of world literature in conjunction with Korean literature. As located at the periphery of global circulation of literary knowledge, Korea appropriated Western genres, established its literary institutions, and developed book markets through modern newspapers and magazines. This experience of furthering modern literature through periodicals would provide another view to revisit Moretti's world literature.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.31-66
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• 2017

This study examines ways of recognizing and aspects of describing Korean modern literature revealed by each literary history from the viewpoint of 'transculturation', focusing on Lim Jeon-Hye's "History of Korean Literature in Japan until 1945", Shirakawa Yutaka's "Footsteps of Korean Modern Literature", and Saegusa Toshikatsu's "Taste of Korean Literature" from the history of Korean literature written in Japan. First, Lim Jeon-Hye periodically examines Korean literature written in Japan, focusing on literary activities of Korean students in Japan and the proletarian literature movement, and addresses points of active cultural negotiation, mutual understanding and political solidarity between Korea and Japan. Shirakawa Yutaka focuses on the concurrency and connection of Korea, China, and Japan in the process of modern literary formation, covering Japanese language literature and pro-Japanese literature with great care, and describes the middle-layer position as a mediating researcher in the conflicting boundaries between Korea and Japan. Saegusa Toshikatsu provides interesting transcultural momentum in exploring internal logic and denotation of Korean literature via comparative literature review encompassing East Asia, implementation of literary forms and themes connecting tradition and modernity, and an out-of-boundary point of view to overlook 'pro-Japanese literature', etc. Transcultural aspects in this literary history to examine are as follow. First, the history of Korean modern literature based on 'national literature history' is catabolized in the magnetic field of the 'colonial experience' and 'national nationalism' and considered in multifaceted context. Second, they provide the possibility of three-dimensional and micro-narrative description of literature that complement the narrative aspect of existing Korean literature history. Third, they provide an opportunity to expand and open the description of literature history through acceptance of comparative literary perspectives encompassing East Asia. Fourth, through discovery of Korean-Japanese literature and Japanese language literature, they contribute to broadening the history of Korean modern literature and enriching foundations.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.40
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• pp.159-183
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• 2015

This study examined the issue of criticism in Korean Chinese literature in 1990's. This is transitional time why China introduced a market economy system. It had an important effect on Korean Chinese society not the cultural climate but also literature. Besides, Diplomatic Relation between Korea and China in 1992 gave an impulsion to changing literature. So this study tried to take note of directionality of Korean Chinese literature through the Korean Chinese magazine Literature and Art(Munhakwayesul) and Zhangbaikshan. First issue of Korean Chinese literature in early 1990's is crisis and restoration of criticism genre. At that time criticism faced with what is modernity. Some critics insisted that criticism should to improve. So it was necessary to accept foreign theory. Then they were concerned postmodernism and deideology tendency. What was important thing is that they would find their culture identity. So few critics tried to communicated with world literature. Especially they emphasized communication with Korean writer who lives in other country. Ultimately they thought that Korean Chines literature must get literal universality and ethnic speciality. For example poet Nam-YoungJeon's totem poetry is representative work. The issues of Korean Chines criticism in 1990's are not directivity of literature but also directivity of culture identity. Korean Chines literature had departed from Socialistic realism little by little and had getting diversity. Above all things criticism aimed for international sense and ethnic culture identity.

• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.37
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• pp.5-45
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• 2018

Today, in the case of literary works such as modern poetry, novels, 'literature production : literature acceptance' are relatively simple as 'writing : reading'. However, in classical literature, there are ways of 'singing, chanting, narrating, performing, public reading, writing : listening, reading.' Modern literary works such as poetry and novels are sole arts made up only of literature, but classical literature have many complex arts accompanied by music, theater, etc. In order to understand the way classical literature, it is necessary to consider music, theater, etc. also. There are a number of subjects to research today in relation to the accepting method of classical literature. There are such things at Hyang-ga (향가), Goryeo Sog-yo (고려속요), Sijo (시조) and Gasa (가사) in of classical poetry. There is a public reading in classical novels. There is securing video materialㄴ for narrators in oral literature. And there are Si-chang (시창. 詩唱) and aloud reading in chinese proses. 'Listening literature', such as the oral literature needs to have the A. Lord's 'formular theory' - 'formular' (general words), 'themes' (general subject), and 'improvisation.' It is the opposite of contemporary poetry and novels that value ' special words', 'special contents', and 'original text.' Classical literature with a great deal of 'listening literature' besides ' reading literature' needs to have this 'formular theory' too basically. In the case of 'excessive pornographic' oriented events in Goryeo Gayo (고려가요) and Pansori (판소리), a vision is required to set up a space for the realization of literature. The haman basic elements like a man and woman's body subject can be evoked as a literature means at open place for anonymous people. Unlike modern poetry and novels, which are 'reading literature', and contain only literature, classical literature have 'listening literature' besides 'reading literature', and have complex arts - classical poetry (literature and music), and oral literature (literature, music, theater etc.) These aspects are available to research modern mass media literature, which are all 'listening literature,' and all complex arts - pop songs (literature and music), movies (literature, drama, image, music etc.) and TV dramas (literature, drama, image, music etc.). Thus, a proper understanding and consideration of the accepting method is very important in understanding, researching and educating classical literature.