• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.145
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• pp.45-69
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• 2018

This is an attempt to reflect on humanity in the post-human era. Here, I think that the question of future human beings should be critically raised in the following two meanings. First, can post-humans recover the body, emotions, nature and women's voices suppressed by modern enlightened subjects? Second, can post-humans preserve humanity by fighting inhumanity without presupposing human essence or immutable foundations? In answer to these questions, I will have a dialogue with M. Heidegger(1889-1976), W. Benjamin(1892-1940), Th. W Adorno(1903-1969). The three philosophers looked at the inhuman world situation brought about by modern subjects and technology, and found the possibility of new human beings. The three philosophers' new human image are the three possible models of post-humanism, 'a human being as ek-sistence' (Heidegger, Chapter 2), 'the man who restored the similarity with the other through innervation' (Benjamin, Chapter 3), 'A human being who negates the inhuman society' (Adorno, Chapter 4), and examines the current status of each. In conclusion, as long as the fourth industrial revolution is developed as a system of digital capitalism that controls the world as a whole from human senses, impulses, and unconsciousness, the necessity of the post-human era is aesthetic authenticity.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.117-144
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• 2020

The film Burning (Lee Chang-dong, 2018) is one of the most noted Korean films in recent years as a work that unfolds an elaborate narrative in a delicate visualization. This film is a multi-vocal text in which different types of characters appear and scattered objective facts and ambiguous subjective desires are intertwined, so it is a text that has room for diverse interpretations. This article attempts to read Burning as an ethical discourse centered on the protagonist Jong-su, noting that the film raises universal and significant ethical issues that transcend the specific social and historical conditions of a contemporary Korean youth. I would like to examine the situation in which Jong-su is facing and his reaction to it, above all, from the perspective of Jong-su's ethical awakening and leap forward. Jong-su, a young South Korean non-regular man living in the present, encounters and connects with Hae-mi and Ben and attempts to understand the mysteries of the world. His trajectory, which the film shows closely, inevitably intersects the social and historical dimension of confusion and frustration of a young man graduated from the Department of Creative Writing, the reality of family dissolution and the individual psychological dimension of the sudden disappearance of his lover Hae-mi. Burning is a magistrate film that depicts Jong-su as an ethical subject oriented toward 'communal togetherness' while confronting the world and exploring its mysteries despite all his unfavorable conditions, such as his social position of the precariat youth and the epistemological uncertainty of reality perception. It is read as a story of his painful growth, in which Jong-su is becoming a 'writer', who once was a helpless non-regular delivery worker.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.45
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• pp.479-496
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• 2016

The aim of this essay was to investigate Marlow's desire for constructing enlightenment subject of knowledge and power sustained by the collusion of imperialism and patriarchy in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Marlow's narrative, based on his journey up the river in Africa to retrieve Kurtz, attempts to conceptualize himself as the subject of the enlightenment reason and rationality. In the novella, collusive network of ideologies of empire and gender contributes to the making of a Western Enlightenment subject. Marlow eulogizes himself for realizing the harsh realities of imperialism, political domination and economic exploitation of the natives in Africa. However, Marlow is a colonial subject who has been ruled by the hierarchical system of thought in the Western logocentrism. He is not aware that his narrative has already been infiltrated by the ideological discourse of the totalitarian enlightenment. His narrative in effect is not a self-congratulatory testimony to truth and realities but a narcissistic and self-defeating document. Marlow unconsciously employs the totalitarian ideologies of empire and gender in order to relegate the African natives to the inhuman existence and to consign women to the sphere of illusion.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.35
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• pp.107-128
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• 2014

Cultural Content industries based on imagination and creativity are attracting attention and the animation high value-added industry is still spotlighted. Among them, Disney Studios make money through using their professional skills. There are the know-how has developed for a long time, and there are timeless strategy. This study is analyzing by fantasy elements for knowing the messages of Disney animation. Fantasy defined as genre of literature by Todorov and Jackson emphasized its social role and significance. Hume expanded the area of fantasy and Tolkein Jahoriski and Boyer classified the fantasy according to the purpose. Through the analyzing Disney animation , Disney's fantasy show the specific expression depending on the target. Disney is based on the three types of fantasy depending on the growth of the journey. The first area is composed of the main character's growth and satisfy the desire and escapism, The second is the word of antagonist who opposed to reality and break the rules of the dominant ideology. The last area is the utopia provided after hero beat the antagonist. Disney characters give the messages by using the fantasy like the transformation or alter ego. That show the subject of the main character's growth and the supporting characters as the expression of the multiple personality of main. These emphasize the hero's growth and give the fun. Also, in the subject of the otherness, the hero always destroy the evil who broke the rules of reality. In this way, the fantasy offered by Disney give the messages of sacrifice and family from true love. Disney has the support of their target audiences continue to be able to convey ideology.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.26
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• pp.79-108
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• 2012

This thesis is on the purpose of seeking for the possibility of a mechanism in interpreting, analyzing and criticizing cartoons which are applied to the concept of "the gaze" based on "the otherness of vision", which states a pluralistic visual world. It proves that cartoons are in line with other art works that are the subject to "lack and desire"; the gaze, greets reality and acts as an important criterion of analyzing and criticizing the trend in contemporary art, in which the cartoon expresses the gaze in harmony within its work of art. In this thesis, the artist, Kang Doh-ha structuralized ambiguous and difficult forms of art as he has cumulated experimental minds by working in an indie cartoon plane for a long period of time. Among his works of art, he identified the "invisible world" through his piece "Kubrik". Therefore, he represented: a metaphor and a metonymy, an ambiguously situational expression, an intentional and emotional error, the structure of individuality and integration, and finally tension beyond its meaning through use of 'the gaze' that is both the cause and the subject of a desire in the visible world which Lacan academized when he interpreted and analyzed "Kubrik". The concept of the gaze can be used in a variety of ways to display one another's presence in relation each character, revealing a spot of lack by staring back at readers or audiences and furthermore, to analyze and criticize the hidden side of the art piece by critics. The most important details are the artist's gaze, which is seen in the eyes of the analysis and also his or her criticism of the cartoon, which functions as a metaphoric screen in which the subject himself or herself betrays the law of desires thus enabling the violent and cruel reality to be masked and indulged in plays. This will serve as an element that will lead into an art as well as control the degradation to just a piece of enjoyment with the cartoon remaining only within the visual world.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.42
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• pp.505-524
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• 2016

This study examines the ways District 9, a film released in 2009, reworks the sci-fi genre to explore the human encounter with "other" alien populations. Like Avatar, released in the same year, District 9 addresses the tropes of conflict over land and human-alien hybridity and introduces non-humans and aliens, not as invaders, but as objects of human oppression and cruelty. Unlike many other science fiction films where the encounter between humans and non-humans occurs in an unidentifiable future time and location, District 9 crosses genre barriers to engage with urban realism, producing a social critique of contemporary urban population problems. The arrival of aliens in District 9 occurs as part of the recorded human past and the film's action is carried out in the present time in the specifically identified city of Johannesburg. A distinctly anti-Hollywood film that locates the action at the street level, District 9 plays out human anxieties about contact with others by referencing the divisions and conflicts historically attached to South Africa's sprawling metropolis and its current problems of urban poverty and illegal immigrants. Focusing on how this particular urban setting frames the film, the study investigates the ways Blomkamp's sci-fi film about extra-terrestrials presents a curious postcolonial mix of aliens and immigrants surviving in abject conditions in an urban slum and forces a realistic examination of the contemporary social problems faced by South Africa's largest city and by extension other major global cities. The paper also examines the film's representation of the human-alien hybrid and its potential as a force to resist human exploitation of the other. It also claims that though the setting is highly local, District 9 speaks to a wider global audience by making obvious the exploitative practices of profit-seeking multinationals. A sci-fi film that is keen on making a social commentary on urban population conflicts, District 9 resonates with the wider sense of insecurity and fear of others that form the horizon of the uncertain and potentially violent contemporary human world.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.15-24
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• 2014

The aim of this study is to examine the patterns of expressing contemporary beauty from the perspective of Laotzu's philosophy in order to suggest its concept and characteristics and to suggest specific cases through cosmetics advertisement. In doing so, the study attempted to understand that contemporary beauty is more humanistic and liberal in terms of expression patterns than in any other time period. The research results are as below. The frame concept of Laotzu's philosophy includes 1. Naturalness, 2. coexistence in Conflict, and 3. Non-otherness. The characteristics of contemporary beauty are natural and healthy, People can foresee changing beauty by the cycle of life and, by admitting this philosophy, people can understand one's individuality and discover self-esteemed beauty. Also, the results from the cases of cosmetics advertisement are as below: 1. Naturalness was remarkable. Such phenomenon was common in representative brands of the research subjects. Expression pattern was based on soft, natural make-up and hair style. 2. For conflict and coexistence, they introduced the ancient image of the situation, and the situational image using food and herbs demonstrated a functional, situational image, which was used for the cosmetics advertisement based on the mutual coexistence concept instead of dichotomy of period or material. 3. Non-otherness advertisement, of which there was none, we expected that maximized marketing effect would be achieved if non-otherness cosmetics advertisement expressed the contemporary beauty because it could solicit sympathy form many consumers.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.483-494
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• 2001

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relation between regional identity and national identity in a regional textbook in Korea. In geography education, regional textbooks are curriculum materials which represent regional identity based on territorial difference from other regions. In local curriculum level, the harmony between national unity and regional identity is to be pursued as educational objective. However, this harmony appears to be distorted in the school textbook in Je-Ju Province, a case region. For example, Confucian cultural landscapes are represented as otherness in regional discourses, but togetherness in the regional textbook. Also, the regional textbook implies that the boundary of external territorialization is mainly not regions but nations, and it seems to intend that leasers get a sense of place towards their region as periphery of nation. Therefore, we argue that regional identity, which must be stressed in a regional textbook, is marginalized in a case region.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.84
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• pp.99-123
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• 2017

We analyzed the movie (2016/ directed by J-yong E), which is entangled in politics of gender, age, class, or sexuality, naming as "spaces of Others", using the concepts of heterotopia of Foucault. Foucault addressed three types of spaces: the realistic space where we currently live, the unrealistic and non-existent utopia, and heterotopia, which functions antithetically to reality. Thus, Foucault's heterotopia can be considered to indicate "heterogeneous spaces" in reality. The Bacchus Lady revolves a 65-year old prostitute So-Young, sells her body to old men at the parks in downtown of Seoul. Old prostitute on streets are often referred as "Bacchus Ladies", because suggest the popular energy drink a bottle of Bacchus while selling sex. The movie represents some minorities such as transgender, Tina and madam of the club, G-spot, migrant women like Camila and Aindu, and a amputee, Dohoon. Through these people's bodies, the problems such as imperials, nations, ethnics, gender, age, class are entangled in the movie. The politics of these points work and construct heterotopias in four spaces of Others. First, the spaces which ageing and death are intersected. Second, the spaces of So-Young for prostitutes, Third, the spaces of So-Young's mothering: she adopted her baby to American when he was a infant, so she have felt guilty. Fourth, the spaces for So-young's quasi-family with Minho, a Kopian boy who was abandoned by Korean father, Dohoon, who is a poor amputee, and Tina, who is a transgender singer. Fifth, the spaces of speech of So-Young as the subaltern: the subaltern does not have the language to express its own experiences. In order to listen to the words of subaltern, we must do the task of measuring the silence. This cinematic representation of So-young as the subaltern makes her speak about her situation. Finally, the spaces constructed by the movie can be connected 'heterotopia of crisis', 'heterotopia of deviation' and 'heterotopia of fantasy'. The spaces of the movie represents lives of Others, nevertheless, So-Young's Otherness through spaces of heterotopia was transformed to an absolute Other by patriarchal traits of cinematic narrative.

• 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.