• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.323-331
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• 2024

The concept of 'Han' is a psychological characteristic formed by Koreans through long-lasting national hardships. It has deeply influenced every Korean as a form of collective unconscious and has merged with various forms of art over time. Director Bong Joon-ho's works, rich in social consciousness, symbolically visualize sensitive issues like social class, presenting harsh satire on class oppression. His movies continuously emphasize human desires, the homogeneity of good and evil, insurmountable class barriers, and moral decay caused by desires. They produce a wealth of symbols filled with layers and power dynamics. Bong Joon-ho dramatically portrays and directs various forms of symbols. The metaphorical symbols in his movies provide a unique research value for delving into the deeper meanings of the films.This study examines the theme of 'class Han' in six of Bong Joon-ho's films, exploring the 'Han culture' of Korea. It applies semiotic concepts by categorizing into character and non-character symbols for an in-depth analysis of the films. The representative works from the late 1990s to the late 2010s articulate the class layers of the 'visible' and the 'invisible' through a blend of realism and surrealism. The study analyzes Bong Joon-ho's films in the sequence of 'satire-exposure-hope', examining the culturally critical nature of 'Han culture' on class and its psychological and cultural impact on the general public.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.67
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• pp.177-208
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• 2014

This study inquires how human interest news on society section of newspapers had been modulated as multi-layered political narratives that would consistently have Koreans consider, realize and question on colonial situation as well as ethnic identity. Under totalitarian censorship of the colonial government, newspapers could not publish reports on political issues and current affairs, so society page of human interest such as crime, accident, conflict, disaster, and many kinds of sufferings of peoples to death would take great public attention and consequently be considered as a substitute of political section. Society page had enjoyed its influence on formation of public opinion of the colonized ethnic society and had maintained cultural-nationalist position ever since the founding of newspaper in mother-tongue in 1920. In colonial context, there is nothing non-political to the lives of the colonized, social facts would be necessary and happen to be modulated into a narrative that could trigger nationalist sentiment. For this end, news reporting of society section usually concentrated on aspects of 'Les Mis${\acute{e}}$rqbles', dramatic quality, and psychological factors in detail. Narrative style of news reporting got used to modulate factual informations with a proper taste of exaggeration, emotional expression, and commercial touch of exciting words. Even in a case of death by drug abuse, news was written to indicate what made him/her drive to miserable death on street, that is, what is de facto reason of all of social problems like as migration, hunger, leaving home, crime, suicide, violence, gambling, love affairs to death, adultery, and even opium habit. Those social problems and personal sufferings appeared up on newspaper 3rd page at daily base. Readers could acknowledge and identify what the real matter that should be resolved and then blame colonialism, capitalism, and militarism for those social problems. Journalists put values on inciting the colonized to realize the national and ethnic situation and feel sympathy for their people tied up by a common destiny. In this terms, news on society section of newspaper under Colonial Occupation were encoded as narratives of politically layered text and then decoded as intriguing sentiments against colonial dominance. I argue that society page of newspaper of colonial period engaged in a sort of cultural politics of sentiment and emotion which is a private area outside of imperial sight.

• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.32
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• pp.193-224
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• 2016

The North Korean animation is a puppet movie that is adapted The Brother and Sister Who Became the Sun and the Moon, a traditional Korean lore. The quality of this animation is acknowledged because of not only North Korea's considerably advanced animation technology but also the animation's retention of the folklore's traditional essence rather than intention to disseminate ideological propaganda. Nevertheless, the animation reveals the trasformation of its original purpose from general educative intentions for children to the educative concept of salvation by heaven is replaced by salvation by people and cultural education insteadof salvation by heaven. The appearance of the hero Jangsoe is the key adaptation of this animation, and it suggests the main principal of salvation lies in man rather than in heaven. Such adaptation complies with the requirements of children's literature suggested by the North Korea's literary history office. Furthemore the hero Jangsoe as the examplary figure of revolutionary self-reliance ideology and as a leader. Theory of self-reliance literature stipulates that children's literature is used for ideological education that develops people to be successors of revolutionary feats and become active workers for the construction of socialism and communism, therefore it is possible to understand the purpose of the adaptation to reflect the educational aims. This study investigates the change in meaning form the original folktale through such adaptation, and highlights problems related to limiting the meaning implied in "heaven's salvation" in the original story only to the vague meaning of religious hope. This vague implied meaning is considered as "an awareness activity to examine their own existence in the universe". With regard to this, the concept of heaven's salvation that is prevalent in the classic stories can be interpreted as a positive self-belief that enables the use of rationality in any helpless situation that cannot be understood with existing empirical knowledge. It considers that heaven expresses the power that exists in the human mind through self-viability and self-belief. This creates the power of reason in the character to fight against the evil disguised as the mother, in the absence of the real mother.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.161-188
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• 2020

This paper seeks to expand the scale of literary history by restoring and analyzing the whole aspect of Kwak Hashin's works, which has so far been studied little. For this purpose, I notice the rupture of discontinuity of his works which is greatly divided into the colonial period and post Korean war period. And the characteristics of each works can be analyzed based on the three axis, local(colonial period), jobless person(post-war period), and Homo Economicus(some short stories, and popular novels in post-war period). In Chapter 2, 'Local-the world of Munjang', I evaluated that Kwak Hashin's novel, which had been published in the late 1930s in the Journal of Munjang, embodied anti-modern aesthetic consciousness, as clearly revealing the sorrow for disappearing things, the pre-modern sense of time, and the preference for local. In Chapter 3, 'Jobless Person' and Chapter 4, 'The State of All People's Struggle against All People, The Appearance of Homo Economicus', the Korean society in late 1950s, which entered underdeveloped capitalist countries after Korean war, can be characterized by two contrasting male-gender, one is the jobless, incompetent male, and the economic man on the other hand. In the late '50s, Lumpen(=Jobless Person) novels showed the problems of the Korean economy through incompetent male character. The intelligent men took the path to survival rather than morality or intimacy, projecting their own incompetence and anxiety to women/wives. In the popular novels Women's Song and The Shadow of the Fig Tree, achievement-oriented male figures who betrayed their colleagues, and exploited women's sex by using love relationships to rise to the top appeared. They can be defined as the Homo Economicus who embody the state of universal struggle against all people. These novels showed the formation of the masculinity in post Korean war period, which pursued the survival of the fittest, borrowing form of popular novel. As we have seen so far, Kwak Hashin needs to be re-evaluated as an writer who expanded the modern literary history in the outside of literature. He was the last generation writer written in Korean late colonial period, and provided the model of postwar literature by borrowing the form of journalism and popular novels.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.221-254
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• 2020

This paper finds a solution in the social context which cannot be explained thoroughly by well-timed release date, revival of comedy films, and the attraction of Lee Byeong-heon's comedy etc. while it throws question of how the film, Extreme Job captivated 16 million audience. The incredible hits of Extreme Job cannot be explained by analyzing the text alone. After this essay investigates a function and a role of comedy as a public sphere, it examines people's desires and wishes in the comedy and other genres since 2008 when the conservative government has seized power. Since 2008 a series of dark tone's action thriller, social problem film, and disaster film have emerged, these genres showed absence of public security, crisis of democracy and criticism against rulling class. On the other hand, hit comedy films have showed escapism such as weepie, nostalgia, and fantasy at the same time, generally. Although Veteran (2015) is not full-blown comedy, after this film's big success, "comic mode" has gradually revived. A light tone's films which are truer to genre rules has started representing the wishes of people toward social reforms and changes. Meanwhile, "Candlelight Protest" served as a momentum to recover the democracy which has been in crisis, but it could not lead changes in economic and daily lives. Exreme Job can be read as a question how we will survive since "Candlight Protest." The lives of detectives as self-employed workers who has taken over a fried chicken restaurant for going undercover are appearances of ordinary persons who must survive in the edless conpetition. Furthermore, this film shows a dream of a "great success myth" which becomes well-known as a famous restaurant and a self-management such as brand-naming and an exapansion of franchise business. We can read ganster's chicken franchises as a huge distribution industry which disturbs market system by delivering drugs secretly. While applauses that we give to the police having identities of self-employed workers which sweeps the ganster are giving support to oridinary neighborhood like us, they are also wishes of people who long for the restoration of publicness of police in the market which is becoming increasingly privatized today. A significance of this essay is to examine Extreme Job in terms of the geography of film genres and the revival of comic mode sicne 2008 at the macro level, and is to read the film in the perspective of the problems of economic and daily lives which has been still unsolved since "Candlelight Protest" at the micro level.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.95-124
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• 2021

As the symbolic images of girls besides its definition have varied according to the age and society, a posthuman girl character recently appears in the digital cinema. This study aims to analyze its cinematic representations and the social contexts in which they are created. For this purpose, the study focuses on what extent the society allows its imagined figurations as a future female body and the meanings revolving around the image of 'technologically body-enhanced female fighter'. Current digital visualization technology has developed to the extent any imaged future humans can be represented, but posthuman girls' representations have its limitation that only a human-like figuration can be allowed in accord with the traditionally idolized image of girls. It is because of the representation logic in which digital cinema is visualized based on perceptual realism that values audiences' experiences. Despite such less critical figuration which does not dare to cross the boundary between the image of human and inhuman, the posthuman girl characters create a new category of the 'dangerous girls' who are both void of sexual femininity and independent of motherhood and heterosexual romance narrative. Of course, they support the modern human-centered belief that humans can take entire control of technology with their moral behaviors and dispel the fear about the negative impact the nature of technology may have on society at large by showing their child-like figuration protecting ethical values. However, the new character of 'unruly girl' exerts her subversive act that seeks to fight against the human-centered liberal humanistic values and melancholic feeling and vulnerability that the neoliberalism and technocracy enforce. When posthuman girl characters are considered to be a marker through which we can see how different social forces are intervening and competing each other in the upcoming posthuman age, the limited figuration of the posthuman girl characters in South Korean movies illustrates the opinionated thoughts toward the instrumentalism in technology but their bloodshed struggles reveal how the corporate or state-governed techno-biopower has oppressively treated and appropriated the human body as the technology-object and also provide a meaningful opportunity to rethink its unethical violence.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.41
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• pp.179-217
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• 2022

Concerning the differences in the tales between the Investigation of Historical Remains of Patriarch Jinmuk (hereafter, IHRPJ), as well as those which appear in Jeungsanist Thought and Daesoon Thought, previous studies view such differences as Jeungsan's intentional modification of the original intent of the narratives or as indicating differences in beliefs and values. This style of interpretation seeks to reconcile both Korean Buddhism and Jeungsanist and Daesoon Thought based on the premise that the former and the latter two exhibit differences in values. This study accepts the above view of the differences in description according to values. However, the differences between the tales of Jinmuk that appears in IHRPJ versus those in The Canonical Scripture can be approached from a new perspective, i.e., the differences that exist between literary and oral traditions; rather than only stemming from potential differences in the world views espoused by Buddhism and Daesoon Thought. These refer to the IHRPJ, which was constructed first as literary narratives in the 19th century; however, there was also folklore that had been handed down from the 18th century. As a result of examining the relationship between Jinmuk and Bonggok via this interpretive horizon, the contents of the IHRPJ are found to reflect the values and intentions of the intellectual class, such those held by Master Cho-ui and Kim Ki-jong, whereas oral traditions can be seen as a reflection of the hopes of the people of the late Joseon Dynasty. Jeungsan should also be interpreted as having utilized folklore in his teachings. Meanwhile, the circumstances and intentions behind publishing the IHRPJ are analyzed in the context of the text's historical background and the relationship between Confucianism and Buddhism during the 16th through 19th centuries. In particular, through the Compilations of Wandang and the collection of writings of Buddhist monastics, I have evaluated that Confucianism needed to purify and correct materials according to the ideology of the times in order to promote a spirit of morality and courtesy. Likewise, Buddhist Master Cho-Ui also embellished records to benefit Buddhism and deleted oral records that could harm the reputation of Buddhism. On the other hand, when viewing Records of Shrine Renovation and existing oral traditions, it can be shown that some Jinmuk tales existed in the 18 th century which were not included in the IHRPJ. Thereby, Jeungsan's description of Jinmuk tales can be reappraised as accepting the oral secular tradition that conveyed the wishes of the people. In other words, compared to the IHRPJ, which reflects only the harmonious content of Confucianism and Buddhism due to political and social factors, The Canonical Scripture reflects oral traditions that were widespread during the late Joseon Dynasty. As evidence, it can be suggested that there are many narratives about the relationship between Jinmuk and Bonggok that center on Bonggok's jealousy and the murder of Jinmuk. Jeungsan aimed to encompass people of all classes according to their minds and wills rather than their political positions or statuses. Therefore, Jeungsan did not need to rewrite the narrative content that had been passed down via oral tradition. Instead he embraced those narratives as a projection of the voices of the people.

• 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.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.73-116
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• 2019

In recent years, television dramas have adopted an emerging approach of imagining a just society via fantasy. This study set out to examine by stages the patterns of social justice in I Hear Your Voice, Pinocchio, and While You Were Sleeping written by Park Hye-ryeon, who has been leading this trend. I Hear Your Voice shows why social justice is needed, as it is set against the backdrop of a society in which legal justice has collapsed. In this drama, the collapse of the legal justice system indicates that democratic society is falling apart at the roots. As a result, pain and suffering is propagated among the petit bourgeois, with social justice being demanded as an alternative to this problematic reality. The supernatural power of reading the thoughts of others is used to remind viewers of the value of truth and trust and raises the possibility of the existence of a true heart as an alternative from a social justice perspective. Set in a society in which media justice is distorted, Pinocchio makes an attempt at changing ideas about social justice. In this drama, the corrupt media justice covers up truth and becomes a parasite to power, creating victims that are falsely accused. In this situation, the Pinocchio Syndrome, which makes people hiccup when telling a lie, shows paradoxically that truth can be distorted, and ultimately destroys absoluteness that is not truth. Finally, While You Were Sleeping inherits the world views of the two previous dramas and proposes a type of social justice called 'common good' as an alternative. A completely unfair society is created when legal justice collapses and media justice is distorted. In this situation, the ability to see the future is an ability to imagine a world of possibilities. Altruistic choices based on trust in others help us to realize a positive future. Social justice as common good to enable solidarity among subjects in a way that transcends the limitations of time and space is proposed as an alternative to overcome the problem of an unfair society. Given the recent reality of South Korean society, this common good and these ways of life might literally seem like a fantasy. When social justice is represented by efforts and reconstruction processes to overcome the current social issues and make a better future, common good based on the understanding and sympathy of others can be an alternative to improve a reality that is problematic at its root. Ultimately, Park's three works explore the feasibility of a just society that is yet to come from the aspect of the common good.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.55-85
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• 2019

In this article, we examine the real meaning behind the stories in which the N-po Generation (Millennial Generation) is depicted, through the observation of entertainment programs, TV series, and movies. This could be an opportunity to investigate the aspects of emotional customs of our era, which have been described by television media as portraying the complex and multifaceted reality in the most mundane and popular manner while influencing the public. Problems with youth unemployment, the polarization of life, and instability are not only global issues but situations that specifically occur in South Korea. It is thus vital to pay attention to the inner side of the N-po Generation who enjoy Sohwakhaeng (small but certain happiness) by eating alone as the placebo effect of this tough reality. This is an agenda that should be viewed as a problem in the fundamental design of South Korean society. The consciousness of the problem shown in the TV series has been drawing attention. The TV series Because depicts a love narrative that concentrates on emotions in a relationship that started between housemates due to poverty and housing problems, leading to marriage. Thus, the TV series persuasively dramatized 'confluent love' in the N-po Generation. In the movie , Miso can be regarded as a symbol that represents the emergence of a new generation of cultural sensitivity. There is a suggestion in the sequence of that identifies the pursuit of taste with the discovery of identity. The TV series is a growth narrative that deals heavily with youth unemployment, temporary workers, fragmented families, and dating violence. The housemates in find emotional stability through interaction with each other, and courageously approach their individual problems. In the process, images of women, who are empathetic towards others and are willing to jointly solve their problems, are calmly depicted to reveal a story of growth revolving around a ground emotional community. The current problem that South Korean society should contemplate is how to be fully human beyond mere survival, and how to further seek the conditions of human existence. In that sense, what we should pursue is a notion of 'publicness', which can put several generations together. Because of the reality that confliction between generations must be triggered, in order to make a passage of sympathizing, mass media's sensitivity training becomes more important. This may be the duty of mass media.