• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.45
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• pp.295-324
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• 2016

This essay attempts a contrapuntal reading of Thomas More's Utopia. Contrapunctual reading, proposed by Edward Said. attempts to make a text speak across temporal, cultural, and ideological boundaries to a topic of present. I examine two opposite readings of Utopia around 2011 by both pro- and anti-Occupy Wall Street positions. On the one hand, the opponents of Occupy find its limits as a utopian social movement echoing in the fictional character of Hythrodaeus and the alternative society verbally sketched by him in Book Two of Utopia. On the other, Occupy's advocates read More's text as embodying its radial possibility. However, each shares the tendency to denounce Book Two, praising Book One in which Hythrodaeus vehemently criticizes England; they read Hythrodaeus not as an utopian idealist but as a social critic. The Occupy, as a result, is seen here as having an ambivalent relationship to utopianism. I reinterpret the radical possibilities of Book Two criticized by both pro- and anti-Occupy invocations of Utopia. Book Two provides a utopian space in which the existing social contradictions are cancelled, revealing the limits of the three partial utopias proposed at the end of Book One. Following Louis Marin's argument, I argue, the "utopic" space does not lie in the so-called ideal society described in the text but in the inconsistencies between the text's description(discourse) and topography(map). In Book Two the existence of a king is described, yet his space is not found in the topography of utopia; likewise market is described as existing at the center of a city, yet its space is not found either. These inconsistencies create a neutral space in which the ideological contradictions of the text are cancelled, and the space opens up the possibility of communal society beyond modern sovereign power and capitalism I argue this utopian dream needs to be summoned once again in our time as a compelling alternative to the corporate, capitalist order.

• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.1-52
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• 2017

This study aims to compare the state building process focusing on the founding presidents of South Korea, which was a colony of the defeated state of World War II and the Philippines, the colony of the victorious state. To this end, it compares the lives of the presidents, mainly the founding president of Korea Syngman Rhee and Manuel Quezon who led the autonomy of the Philippines and established the Commonwealth government, in the contexts of the state building process of the two countries. In each country, the leaders had to address the core tasks for founding the states in common. Firstly, after the independence or the acquisition of state autonomy, both countries adopted a constitution based on the presidential system with the strong authority of the presidents influenced by the United States. Secondly, the two countries after the independence were operated on the basis of anti-communism at the forefront of the Cold War. In addition, they also carried out land reform to bring the peasants into the system for supporting anti-communism. Lastly, the two countries also faced the same issues of liquidating the Japanese colonial legacies. Therefore the study examines the establishment of the constitution, settlement of anti-communism line, the land reform issues, and liquidation of Japanese colonialism or occupation in each country. The Philippines attained 'constitutional independence' in 1935 and experienced political development faster than any other post-colonial country in Asia. However, except for the establishment of the constitution, the early leaders were not able to address the principal issues for state building. As land reform failed, landowners became economically and politically dominant. The Philippines, where the modern citizen class has not arisen suffered from the political and economic recession. In Korea, despite the Korean War and division of the country, the founding president Syngman Rhee attempted to solve the tasks. As a result, he was able to lay the track of liberal democracy against communism and also settled Japanese colonial legacy as much as it was allowed. In particular, through land reform, he has laid the basis for the nation-state and economic development and has set up the girders of Korean economy by adopting the market economy system. Although there are merits and demerits, compared with the leaders of other countries especially with the Philippines, it is no doubt that Syngman Rhee has played an essential role in establishing the state as a founding president.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.273-295
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• 2010

Germany has started restitution process for most of collections from its occupied countries after World War II which was strongly led by the United Nations. However, this process did not include many of the plundered Jewish collections. In 1989, restitution for the Jewish's properties confiscated by the Nazis became important international issue with success in Jewish material claims against Germany in the U.S and Europe countries after German unification. German libraries has still possessed collections sequestered by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. With Washington conference on holocaust-era assets in 1998, libraries began to sympathize with restoration of their Jewish confiscated collections. In present, by identifying the provenance of those collections at primary level, German librarians focus on various restitution activities for those collections in order to introspect and overcome their past. Specifically, the libraries publish the practical guidebook of studies on the provenance identification and open the database for the pillaged collections to the public. Few libraries start to restore the collections, but the numbers of the restituted collections are still insignificant.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.44
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• pp.87-121
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• 2016

Daehoon Ham's novel 'Cheongchunbo' features a studier as the main character who majored in Russian literature and admired the culture of the Soviet Union. From his viewpoint, the novel reproduces North Korean society before and after its independence from Japan. In this regard, it shows multilayered presence related to Russian culture and Soviet Russia. Such an aspect is based on the sense of sympathy that the main character has. The sense of sympathy is originated from the main character's admiration for the exoticism of Soviet culture which was forbidden during the late Japanese occupation. After Korea's independence from Japan, Russian was replaced by English. Such change also occurred in the main character's viewpoint. He underwent a change in his integrative viewpoint on Russian and Soviet under the name of Red Army. After defecting to South Korea, he began to put Russia down as a den possessed by the devil called 'communism.' In the meantime, Russia and Soviet have been separated from each other in ideological terms. The novel 'Cheongchunbo' stresses that the decisive cause of such changes is argued over trusteeship. The main character, fascinated by the presence of exotic Soviet, predicates that Soviet is a political symbol around the national division caused by the trusteeship. His change alluded to the life path of Korean authors who translated Russian literature after independence. During the Japanese occupation, Russian literature translated into Korea was a longing for forbiddance and admiration for Russia. However, the Russia presented in Daehoon Ham's novel before and after independence implies that the romantic translation has ended.