• English & American cultural studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.219-239
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• 2014

Arjun Appadurai contends that "the new global cultural economy has to be seen as a complex, overlapping, disjunctive order that cannot any longer be understood in terms of existing center-periphery models" (32); though discerning and perhaps becoming more and more apt, Appadurai's observation of the breakdown of the "center-periphery" binary appears as mere "academic jargon" in the lives of new immigrants, tackling the murky waters of identity politics in the transcultural technoscape of modern America in Kunzru's Transmission. Kunzru's antihero is Arjun Mehta, a software technician, who comes to America with high hopes of realizing the "American Dream." To a certain extent, Arjun himself is culpable of resurrecting the "center" as he prioritizes America and its values over all else. Despite his best efforts, Arjun cannot prevail in the perilous politics of exclusion/inclusion, and is relegated into a "high-tech coolie," exploited for his technological savvy. Even as the "center-periphery" binary stays intact in the production of an (Asian) American identity, it becomes undone in the hands of this "would-be" American; ultimately denied inclusion into America, Arjun unleashes a destructive virus that has major global consequences. In a sense, the boundary that separates the center and the periphery comes down as both collectively become victims to Arjun's retributive malfeasance. Arjun seems to rely on the "American" promise that old allegiances (to a national identity) are now defunct and new ones can be easily forged; as Kunzru's Transmission demonstrates with the tragic story of Arjun, the complex politics of identity production in America does not necessarily deliver on this promise. This essay hence aims to examine the politics of (national) belonging in the age of transnationalism.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.362-381
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• 2017

People are most commonly divided by their nationality, but that does not mean they share the same culture. Even for people from one cultural background, subcultures play an important role for diversity and identity, and popular music is one way to express them. This study analyzed 6 songs of the Hip Hop genre from the US, Germany and South Korea, with one song each from the time of first emergence of the term 'Hip Hop' and one song each from 2016, selected on the basis of popularity indicated by music record sales and specialist literature on the history of Hip Hop. Through semiotic analysis of early and recent Hip Hop in each country, the changes in popular Hip Hop over time were examined. The results of this study show that through standardization, Hip Hop in the three countries has superficially become more similar and more focused on the individual, but on a detailed level shows significant differences: while U.S. Hip Hop refers to the American Dream, German Hip Hop displays an extreme image of masculinity, and Korean Hip Hop deals with private thoughts. Although popular Hip Hop nowadays does not explicitly exercise social criticism it is still ascribed the symbolic significance of a rebellious and revolutionary cultural practice that can be used to criticize and change culture as well as society.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.30
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• pp.59-86
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• 2013

'Spectacles' and 'factuality' provided by computer technology are strengths of CG animation to still lure the audience and after commercial success of a number of theatrical CG animations whose typical producing companies are PIXAR and DreamWorks, were produced to be commercially successful and they win massive popularity even now. In Korea as well, several works tried to achieve a box office success including , , etc. but the result was truly miserable. In the past, this failure was often attributed to a lack of 'technical expertise', but it became clear that in the process of continuous trial and error, 'narrative' and 'images of imagination' which are bases and characteristics of animation are key elements of commercial success. Actually, statistics indicate that narrative is what is considered to be the most important by the audience when they select animation and its importance is so absolute that they say the most significant thing in animation is 'story.' In particular, it can be said that 'characters', 'situations', and 'ideas' play a key role in them which become elements of the story. This paper studied with what characteristics each animation aroused pleasure and fun focused on characters, situations and images in relation to , , and which are American theatrical CG animation films which succeeded in gaining popularity home and abroad. We hope that analysis in this paper will be helpful even just a little bit as a reference material, which allows domestic writers and producers to develop familiar and characteristic works based on imagination and creativity expressing each work's unique personality and characteristics.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.245-269
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• 2013

Self-sufficiency has been recognized as one of the most important welfare goals for women in the domestic violence field since the welfare reform in the U.S. A qualitative research design was conducted to explore the self-sufficiency experience of Korean-American single mothers with the history of domestic violence in poverty. The meaning of 'self-sufficiency' to participants is that a continuing task or process in life to move toward being independent mentally as well as economically. Their challenges toward self-sufficiency include the period of restoration of their potentials for self-sufficiency destroyed by domestic violence victimization and divorce, and the period of developing their sustainability for self-sufficiency. Their needs for 'help and support similar to care from the woman's parents' home', 'welfare service of select and concentration', 'mature dependency and self-sufficiency', and 'self-sufficiency from survival to dream come true' to cope with the challenges formentioned are reported. Concrete strategies for the development of self-sufficiency polices and services sensitive to immigrant single mothers with the history of domestic violence are suggested.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.813-838
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• 2011

Toni Morrison's ninth novel A Mercy delves into the colonial American history of the seventeenth century when Europeans began to migrate to the New World and when the first slaves were brought to Virginia. Morrison presents a diverse group of people such as white Europeans, an American Indian, a free black man, indentured servants, and slaves from Africa in order to explore the subjects of ownership, freedom and racism. She emphasizes the fact that most of the Europeans who came to America in the early seventeenth century were the people who were thrown out from the society such as felons, prostitutes, servants and children. By portraying how these castaways tried to settle in a new environment surrounded by unknown dangers and challenges, Morrison demystifies and reconstructs the myth of the birth of America as a nation state. In continuation of Morrison's writings about love and the betrayal of love, her novel A Mercy explores the subjects of trauma, memory and subjectivity by choosing the topic of motherly love and its betrayal which she dealt with poignantly in Beloved. The female protagonist, Florens, is given away by her mother in partial payment of debt incurred by the owner of Florens's mother. The traumatic memory of Florens's separation from her mother shapes Florence's character. She has to revisit the site of the original traumatic experiences of being given up by her mother in order to reconstruct her fragmented memory and past. The recurring dream of the traumatic incident that takes hold of Florens can be explained by the trauma theory of Freud, Cathy Caruth, Suzette Henke, and Judith Herman. The paper explores the self journey of Florens in which she faces the traumatic past and comprehends its meaning which enables her to construct her subjectivity by understanding the true meaning of being free and of owning oneself. In particular, it demonstrates how the process of writing a confession, a story about one's history, enables one to reclaim the traumatic experience and to locate it in the narrative memory.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.17-26
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• 2015

Purpose - Ethical management connects corporate management outcomes and emphasizes organizational cooperation. It also links human resource management, auditing, and financial management to increase employee job satisfaction. A survey of American enterprises showed that employees with high ethical consciousness had greater job satisfaction and lower turnover. Research design, data, and methodology - Hypotheses and models based on previous studies were used to investigate the effects of ethical management on employee job satisfaction and turnover intentions. To examine hypotheses empirically, a questionnaire survey based on previous studies was administered to service business workers in Seoul. Results - The study investigated the effects of ethical management practices in relation to factors such as top management's willingness to put them into practice, their appropriateness and implementation within operations, and their influence on job satisfaction, and also examined the effects of job satisfaction on turnover intentions. Conclusions - Ethical management greatly influences job satisfaction and turnover intentions, providing organizational members with alternatives regarding ethical considerations, and to place a strong emphasis on management willingness and enterprise regulations and policies.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.651-672
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• 2018

Death of a Salesman is centered on Willy Loman trying to achieve the American dream and taking his family along for the ride. This paper explores the meaning of his suicide in the work through the Adorno's theory on the individual's reification and commodity by an exchange value in the capitalism and argues that Bourdieu's capital classification shows the cause of his tragic decision. Reification refers to "the structural process whereby the commodity form permeates life in capitalist society." and Adorno called the reification of consciousness an epiphenomenon. The social-psychological level in Adorno's diagnosis serves to demonstrate the effectiveness and pervasiveness of late capitalist exploitation. According to Bourdieu, cultural capital can exist three forms: in the embodied state, in the objectifed state and in the instituionalized state. He states embodied capital is argued to be the most significant influence; however unlike other forms of capital (social, economic, etc.) obtaining embodied capital is largely out of the individuals' control as it is developed from birth. In conclusion, I suggest Death of a Salesman can be interpreted as a text criticizing the internalization of the subject, which is the result of the self-destructive mechanism of the subject in the logic of modern subject formation.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.29-62
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• 2021

The current research develops and tests the theory that beliefs in economic mobility are affected by social capital at the community level, especially for low-income individuals. Integrating concepts from social capital and perceived economic mobility (PEM), this research hypothesizes that members of disadvantaged groups (vs. members of advantaged groups) are more likely to adjust their PEM depending on the social capital at the community level. Using archival data, multilevel analysis is employed to examine whether individual- or community-level social capital increases PEM and the extent to which income moderates this relationship. Consistent with our hypotheses, social capital at the community level is significantly associated with PEM and this relationship is stronger for low-income (vs. high-income) earners. Study 1 shows that individuals in communities with high levels of social relations and participation are more likely to have higher PEM than those in communities with lower levels. Study 2 replicates this finding with a similar dependent variable: negative prospects. Further, the PEM-enhancing and negative prospects-decreasing effects of community-level social capital are consistently stronger for low-income (vs. high-income) earners. This study extends the investigation of PEM and social capital by suggesting social capital as a possible antecedent of PEM.

• Strategy21
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• s.42
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• pp.224-257
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• 2017

As the Trump administration withdraws the Paris Climate Agreement and shows its antipathy toward free trade, the U.S.'s soft power is most likely to weaken and its behaviors could be perceived as acts to surrender the U.S. hegemonic leadership in the world stage. Hegemonic stability theory notes that the existence of a hegemonic power contributes to international stability in the sense that it provides international public goods. A lack of the U.S's leadership in international politics, however, could be recognized as its denial of a hegemonic status. Is it intentional or accidental? The U.S's denial of hegemonic roles is the byproduct of the Trump administration's "American First" policy, not the showcase of its intention to transit hegemony to others. What is noteworthy is that China targets a niche market of hegemony as the U.S. denies its roles as the international leader. Put it another way, China attempts to ride hegemony for free when the U.S. denies its hegemonic roles accidentally. Faced with a niche market of hegemony, China has begun to accelerate its national strategy to make "Chinese Dream" come true. To that end, China promised again to keep the Paris Climate Agreement and attempts to play more active its roles in Shanghai Cooperation Organization(SCO), Asia Infra Investment Bank(AIIB), and "One Belt, One Road". Despite all these efforts, the U.S. is most likely to withdraw its denial of hegemony any time soon. The U.S's resumption of Freedom of Navigation Operations(FONOPs) could be a precursor of the return to a hegemonic power's willingness. In this vein, it is noteworthy that the South China Sea serves as a quasi-war zone for hegemonic conflict.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.121-127
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• 2017

In 2013, Baz Luhrmann's movie re-made Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby". In Novel, readers keep trace of the plot with their imagination, but in Movie , movie director comes together to create visual and auditory elements of it. Daisy Buchanan is a fashion icon, wearing Prada, Chanel, and Tiffany's jewelry, which reproduce the costume of Jazz Age, and make viewers well understand that of Jazz Age. Symbols like "Ash Valley", "Green light", "East Egg", "West Egg" are presented more directly in movie. Roaring parties held in Gatsby's great mansion was made by computer graphic, and its enormous scale also reflects the mental chaos and the material affluence in those age. Additionally, actors excellent show highlights the theme of the novel. With the adaptation of novel, the film finally achieves more appealing art in front of the public. This thesis investigates these more logistically with the materials of internet.