• English & American cultural studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.49-75
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• 2014

This paper argues that John Leguizamo disguises ethical intention with humor in his one-person show, Freak. The argument proceeds in three stages. First, on the basis of Slavoj ${\check{Z}}i{\check{z}}ek^{\prime}s$ theory that fantasies teach us how to desire discussed in The Sublime Object of Ideology, I analyze how and why Leguizamo exaggerates and thus de-constructs the ideological fantasies about Latin Americans in Freak. Through this analysis the ridiculous exaggeration of the fantasies and their deconstruction emerges as the means to surface the trauma caused by the fantasies, internally and externally curing and reconciling the audience. Second, I apply ${\check{Z}}i{\check{z}}ek^{\prime}s$ theory of the quilting point introduced in Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture to reveal how "blots" in Freak form "black holes" in the audience's consciousness to smash their established view of the reality, inducing them to encounter with "the real." The investigation into Leguizamo's use of humor as the quilting point illuminates how he invites the audience to look awry beyond the popular fantasy at "the real" America. Third, on the ground of Emmanuel Levinas's theory that theaters are the space of ethics, namely "ethotopos" to emphasize responsible actions discussed in "Ethics as First Philosophy," I assert that Leguizamo disguises his ethical message with humor so as for the audience to recognize their responsibility for others in America and take action towards change.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.4
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• pp.599-624
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• 2011

Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian (and the Border Trilogy) can be used as a touchstone with which the limit of American literature is tested. For his text is particularly significant in the sense that its language mixes English with Spanish; its characterization confronts Americans with non-Americans; and its narrative structure traverses the geographical and symbolic borderlands between America and Mexico. In this sense, his novels deserve to be reexamined under the rubric of Chicano/a Studies, Hemispheric American Studies, transnationalism, etc. Rereading McCarthy's Blood Meridian, this paper attempts to rethink its historical complexity in relation to Manifest Destiny, focusing on the border-crossing motifs of filibustering and scalp-hunting. For this purpose, I pay due and careful attention to the ways in which the ideology of Manifest Destiny was created, circulated, and manipulated among the 19th century American expansionists and border-crossing agents. Of course, my discussion does not omit the significance of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands in the contemporary Chicano/a Studies and Hemispheric American Studies. In these historical and interdisciplinary contexts, I investigate how the 19th century filibusters like Captain Smith and his followers fall prey to the imperial practice of Manifest Destiny. I would also interrogate whether and how the Glanton Gang's scalp trade is involved in the capitalist desire of Manifest Destiny.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.103-137
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• 2018

Harold Pinter's One for the Road(1984) is a play about violence. Nicholas, who appears to be the manager of a place, interrogates Victor, Nicky, and Victor's wife Gila in a room for one day from morning to night. There is no direct physical violence in this play. But hints about the atrocities that took place outside the stage make the audience guess the violence and cruelty. Violence, which is not seen as such, is the central theme of the play. One for the road is worth reading as a resistance to breaking the mirror of global ideology, not as it deals with violent events confined to Turkey. The problem which Pinter had in mind, in particular, is that the United States plays a leading role in producing world-class ideologies, and that Britain is involved in collusion with the United States in cultivating such ideological fantasies, both abroad and at home. This thesis analyzes the contrasting reactions of each character in the play based on this social context. In particular, the conflicting reactions of the characters on the system are the most important conflict in the drama. Nicolas is a manager who moves on the system without seeing the truth. Victor and his family, on the other hand, do not move within the same ideology as Nicholas. This paper will take a look at what their strategies of resistance is and how they are revealed in the work. In fact, Nicholas appears split. Nicholas seemingly reacted decisively to the interpellation of the system. He expresses his belief and respect for the legitimacy of his actions. However, he has repeatedly sought the respect and love of Victor. Nicholas is now swaying. The theme that Nicholas presents consciously by grabbing at his own sway is 'Patriotism.' But this fantasy splits through Victor's silence and death demands. Therefore, the questions to be answered are: So why does Nicolas appear to be torn apart in a system that directs violence? But why is he forced to assimilate into the system? What other figures imply? To answer these questions, this thesis will take Slavoj Zizek's view of ideology. On the other hand, there are previous studies that read the system of violence in One for the road from the Althusser's perspective. Surely, this play explores the role of Ideological State Apparatus. However, from the point of view of Althusser, it is not possible to read Nicholas's division and the point of resistance seen by Victor's family. Pinter does not limit the scope of the ideological system as a closed one that regenerates ideologies, but secures the domain of main body resistance and struggle. On the other hand, there are already several domestic theses that read Pinter's work in Zizek's perspective. But these theses are mainly focused on analysis of Mountain Language. What this thesis would suggest is that there is a potential for an ethical figure of Zizek to be considered in One for the Road.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.53-71
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• 2014

This paper is about some aspects of the late-modern representation of antiquity in Western countries. The timeframe is mostly the decades since the 1980s, but some works are also mentioned from previous phases. Some information is given on the late-modern historical novel, characterized by mixture of genres and intertextual references to historical events and contemporary varieties of discourse. Eclecticism would seem to be a characteristic feature, and it mainly consists of a mixture of real events and imagination, cohabitation of ancient settings and modernized characters, and interaction between high and low culture. Commercialization often accompanies novels on antiquity in the $21^{st}$ century. And ideologies such as romanness, germanism and barbarianism are employed by some authors to refer to contemporary realities. A number of films and novels are mentioned. More specific analysis focuses on Valerio Manfredi's The Last Legion and the film based on the book; Simon Scarrow's Gladiator: The Fight for Freedom; and Robert Harris's Pompeii.

• American Studies
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.57-97
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• 2019

This study seeks to reveal why the U.S. House Democrats showed different levels of support in the voting of the U.S.-Morocco FTA, U.S.-Bahrain FTA, and U.S.-Oman FTA. Existing studies focusing on the constituency or members' ideology do not properly account for the variance of these three FTA voting results. All of these FTAs, however, were promoted as a part of the president's foreign policies. If so, FTA support in Congress could depend on representatives' evaluation of the presidential foreign policy. Based on this, the study analyzes how representatives' evaluation of President Bush's foreign policy changed according to the period of the three FTA votes. The vote on the FTAs has been influenced by their evaluation of the presidential foreign and national security policies.

• American Studies
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.1-37
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• 2021

J.D. Salinger's 1951 novel, Catcher in the Rye, has generally been known as a story of a young rebel, Holden Caulfield, who tries to break away from reality in the fifties, a decade prevalent with the strict rule and faultfinding culture of what he is taught at school: to simplify and unify. This novel often refers to a journey of an outsider who commits to playing a catcher in the rye, a fantasy world of innocence, infinity, and youth. As the story unfolds, Holden's ontology is rendered to show how vulnerable his affective ontology is to the ideological reality of containment and conformity. This informs how Holden is a pathological character that reifies the performative crisis of the postwar US Cold War ideology. That said, this paper examines the extent to which this novel can be possibly read as a narrative of illness to expose Holden's pathological conditions of illness, hysteria, and psychosis. Thus, it looks at his medical symptoms whose pathogens I attempt to analyze in terms of his affective potential of being ontologically engaged to the historical context, or the political unconscious, of the postwar US in the early Cold War years.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• v.9 no.spc
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• pp.167-184
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• 2003

This paper is to analyze how Walt Whitman developed the theme and structure of Leaves of Grass with his ideal of democratic vistas. Whitman established his identity as an inspired poet, having faith in the divinity of man based on transcendental belief. After being awakened to the transcendental truth, he practiced his own common world view--his democratic vistas. Whitman searched for the unity with nature and identified his self with "common man and his nation." The poetry expresses "cosmological and national ideology" dedicated to the creation of an ideal nation united in eternal freedom and peace. By portraying common cosmic and national theme in terms of his individual personality, he brought various paradoxical and controversial ideas into one thing, namely "democracy", fusing diversity into unity. As in the symbol of the grass, there is a unity in variety reflected by democracy in a cosmological and political compound. With the form of free verse, he could express his liberal unrestrained and mystical thoughts of democracy. This new form has been associated with the poet's strong consciousness of the need for modernization in his country. He willingly assumed "the role of prophet and public voice for American democrat" with the rolling catalogues and I-persona which formed a sense of the common man and common things of America. Whitman pioneered a democrat literature with simple and dynamic tone and style. He successively pursued the democratic vistas in his Leaves of Grass.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.149-167
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• 2008

Korea has persisted in the notion of "ethnic nationalism." That is "one race, one people, one language" as a homogeneous entity. This social ideal of unity prevails, even in overseas Korean communities formed by voluntary and involuntary displacement in the turmoil of modern history: communities made intermittent with the Japanese colonial occupation and with postcolonial encounters with the West. Given that the Korean people suffered from the trauma of deprivation of the language caused by the loss of the nation, nation has been equated with the language. Accordingly, "these bearers of a homeland" are also firm Korean language holders. The linguistic patriotism of unity based on the intertwining of "mother tongue" and "father country" has become prevalent in the collective memory of the people of the Korean diaspora. Korean American literature has grappled with this concept of the national history of Korea and the Korean language. The aesthetics of Korean American literature has been marked by an influx of literary resources of 'Korea' in sensibilities and structure of feelings; Korean myth, folk lore, songs, humor, traditional stories, manners, customs and historic moments. An experimental use of the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, written down as pronounced, provides an ethnic flavor in the midst of the English texts. Despite its national framework of mind, however, Korean American literature as an interstitial art reveals a keen awareness of inbetweenness, and transnational hybrid identities. By exploring the complex interrelationships of cultural and linguistic boundary-crossing practices in Korean American literature, this paper argues that the poetics of the Korean diaspora challenges the closed structure of identity formation, and offers a transnational sphere to deconstruct a rigidly demarcated national ideology of "one race, one people, one language," for the world literary history.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.210-226
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to explore the American black film director Ryan Coogler and his cinema world. Coogler as a youth director directs three movies as (2013), (2015), (2018) from independence film to Hollywood film, and represents black people' life and racial discrimination base on his cultural identity. For this study, explore traits of esthetics, subject and context meaning by analyzing representative three movies. Lastly examines significance of his movies in Hollywood black film history. He represents blackness and self-reflection as a black youth director, and successfully succeed to the tradition of 'Black Film' in American film history. He also turn white patriarchal ideology upside down in Hollywood. He inherits the tradition of 'Black Film' in American film history, and simultaneously tries to re-write black film tradition. Youth director Coogler is a symbol of 'New Hollywood Black Film Power' at the 21th.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.36
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• pp.309-338
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• 1998

The American military occupations of Korea(1945-1948) and Japan(1945-1952) after the second world war had great influences on the history of the two countries, the contents and results were, however, quite different. This study attempts to analyze the similarities and differences, the determinants of the social welfare policy, and their long-term effects on the later social welfare policies in the two countries. For the purpose of this study, it uses a comparative case study on the public assistant policies of the two countries during the American military occupation. The conclusions of this study are summarized as follows. Firstly, although the American military occupations of the two countries faced the similar social problems during the same period, their countermeasures were quite different from each other. In Korea, the American military occupation hardly tried to establish a substantial social welfare system by making laws, but, mainly relying on temporary emergency relief, they just aimed for social control. On the other hand, in Japan, the American military occupation tried to improve the existing social welfare system in terms of the principles of demilitarization and democratization. Secondly, the political determinants of the social welfare policy in the two countries were much more important than the socioeconomic determinants. Especially the differences in the basic military occupation principles, the administration structure, and the roles of the indigenous ruling classes acted upon the different social welfare policies of Korea and Japan. Thirdly, the long-term effects on the later social welfare policies in the two countries was different. In Korea, the American military occupation hardly contributed to modernize the social welfare policy. Therefore, the unsystematic premodern relief system continued to exist for a long time. On the other hand, in Japan, the American military occupation contributed to modernizing the social welfare policy in terms of ideology and system and formed the groundwork for developing the later social welfare policies.