• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.41
• /
• pp.415-442
• /
• 2015

Through the comparison of "Rendezvous with a Bird" with "Araby", there were found to be well-explained psychological causes of the boy's (Petya) behavior that closely discloses the concrete object of desperation and definitely confirmed the internal causes of heroes (vanity of the boys in "Araby" and "Rendezvous with bird"). Through the comparison of "Rendezvous with a Bird" with "A man in a boat" we also knew that Petya's indefinite fear of death was to some extent a sense of guilt. This study contains a full-scale review of Russian contemporary writer Tatyana Tolstaya's short story "Rendezvous with a Bird", which is one of the her earliest works. As many critics indicate, the works of Tatyana Tolstaya resonate with metaphor. "Rendezvous with a bird" plays an important role in understanding this metaphoric tendency. In order to understand the metaphoric tendency of her works we need our own reading strategy, and so we inquired into the grasp of the main motifs. Analysis of the main motifs can start from the understanding of meanings of the very figurative title 'Rendezvous with a Bird'. To understand the meanings of the title, we first of all analyzed the incidents of actual or figurative meetings with birds in this work, and through this we deduced two main motifs. We confirmed one main motif of 'desperation', which centers on the love of a young boy and woman. We confirmed the other motif as 'death', which developed into the rendezvous of the grandfather with inevitable death. Thus, the 'desperation' and 'death' with which we meet in childhood becomes a subject matter for the writer. To understand the deeper meanings of these main motifs, we compared "Rendezvous with Bird" with the short story "Araby" by James Joyce and with the short story "A man in a boat" by Eyvind Johnson, which very successfully deal with the motifs: 'desperation' and 'death'.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.52
• /
• pp.277-312
• /
• 2018

First-order cybernetics during the 1940s and 1950s aimed for control of an observed system, while second-order cybernetics during the mid-1970s aspired to address the mechanism of an observing system. The former pursues an objective, subjectless, approach to a system, whereas the latter prefers a subjective, personal approach to a system. Second-order observation must be noted since a human observer is a living system that has its unique cognition. Maturana and Varela place the autopoiesis of this biological system at the core of second-order cybernetics. They contend that an autpoietic system maintains, transforms and produces itself. Technoscientific recreation of biological autopoiesis opens up to a new step in cybernetics: what I describe as third-order cybernetics. The formation of technoscientific autopoiesis overlaps with the Fourth Industrial Revolution or what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee call the Second Machine Age. It leads to a radical shift from human centrism to posthumanity whereby humanity is mechanized, and machinery is biologized. In two versions of the novel Demon Seed, American novelist Dean Koontz explores the significance of technoscientific autopoiesis. The 1973 version dramatizes two kinds of observers: the technophobic human observer and the technology-friendly machine observer Proteus. As the story concludes, the former dominates the latter with the result that an anthropocentric position still works. The 1997 version, however, reveals the victory of the techno-friendly narrator Proteus over the anthropocentric narrator. Losing his narrational position, the technophobic human narrator of the story disappears. In the 1997 version, Proteus becomes the subject of desire in luring divorcee Susan. He longs to flaunt his male egomaniac. His achievement of male identity is a sign of technological autopoiesis characteristic of third-order cybernetics. To display self-producing capabilities integral to the autonomy of machinery, Koontz's novel demonstrates that Proteus manipulates Susan's egg to produce a human-machine mixture. Koontz's demon child, problematically enough, implicates the future of eugenics in an era of technological autopoiesis. Proteus creates a crossbreed of humanity and machinery to engineer a perfect body and mind. He fixes incurable or intractable diseases through genetic modifications. Proteus transfers a vast amount of digital information to his offspring's brain, which enables the demon child to achieve state-of-the-art intelligence. His technological editing of human genes and consciousness leads to digital standardization through unanimous spread of the best qualities of humanity. He gathers distinguished human genes and mental status much like collecting luxury brands. Accordingly, Proteus's child-making project ultimately moves towards technologically-controlled eugenics. Pointedly, it disturbs the classical ideal of liberal humanism celebrating a human being as the master of his or her nature.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.53
• /
• pp.103-130
• /
• 2018

The Chilean female writer María Luisa Bombal (1910 - 1980)'s "El ${\acute{a}}rbol$" (The Tree) (1939) tells the process of Brigida's epiphany. Brigida first tried to gain her father's love and failed, and later her husband's love and failed, then tried to substitute that love from men with solace from a tree. At the end of the novel, the epiphany occurs when the tree is cut down. In the present work, I explain the meaning of Brigida's epiphany, by comparing this Chilean short story with the Korean female writer Kim Chaewon(1946 - )'s "Trick of Water: A Kiss with Nothing" (2015). In this Korean short story, Kim insists that a woman who tries to find comfort in life through love with a man is destined to fail. I also examine the errors of the female characters' behaviors in these two short stories that led them to their self-destruction, trying to modify their behaviors in order to be loved by a man and their tendency to consider the man as everything in their life, and not as a part of their life. In order to explain the fated failure of finding comfort in life in the love of a man, I analyze the fleeting characteristic of acquiring an object of desire using Jacques Lacan's "Theory of Desire" and "The Destruction of the Elevated Object into the Dignity of the Thing." Thus, I conclude that women need to acknowledge that comfort in life cannot be found in the love of a man and that they should stop confining themselves to this fictitious characteristic of the dignified object called man.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.41
• /
• pp.443-475
• /
• 2015

The subjects of analysis in this paper, the clan name roots "Baj," "Kim," and "Shama/Sama," while distributed commonly among the Altai, Ye i, and isolated language groups, are most widely distributed among the Evenki. The clan name root "Baj-" is widely distributed among indigenous Siberian nations, but is most frequently found among the Manchu-Tungus, especially the Evenki. Therefore, it appears that clans with this root originated from Pribajkal'e, known to be the origin of the Evenki, and spread widely among the nearby Buryats, Mongols, and Yakuts, later spread east to the Nivhi of the Amur River, to the Enisej Protoasiatic language nations such as the Yukaghir or Ket to the north, and the Samoyed language group nations such as the Ne and Selkup. According to the analysis results in this paper, the Evenki clan name "Kim" has the meaning of "person," but also is somewhat associated with gold, metal, or stone. On one hand, while the origin of the clan name "Kim" cannot be clearly established, the clan was assimilated into the Evenki near in ancient times, after which the clan name became widely known among the Manchu-Tungus nations, and furthermore in the Turk nations. The clan name Shama/sama is widely spread across Siberia, including the Manchu-Tungus language group nations of the Altai language family, the Turk language family, and the Samoyed language groups of the Ural language family. Moreover, this clan name is not associated with famous mythic ancestors or heroes of historically famous Asian nations, and it cannot be translated into contemporary language; thus the identification of the meaning and origins of this word is by no means an easy task.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.53
• /
• pp.163-192
• /
• 2018

The purpose of this paper was to examine universal dependency UD application cases of Korean and Japanese with similar morphological characteristics. In addition, UD application and improvement methods of Korean were examined through comparative analysis. Korean and Japanese are very well developed due to their agglutinative characteristics. Therefore, there are many difficulties to apply UD which is built around English refraction. We examined the application of UPOS and DEPREL as components of UD with discussions. In UPOS, we looked at category problem related to narrative such as AUX, ADJ, and VERB, We examined how to handle units. In relation to the DEPREL annotation system, we discussed how to reflect syntactic problem from the basic unit annotation of syntax tags. We investigated problems of case and aux arising from the problem of setting dominant position from Korean and Japanese as the dominant language. We also investigated problems of annotation of parallel structure and setting of annotation basic unit. Among various relation annotation tags, case and aux are discussed because they show the most noticeable difference in distribution when comparing annotation tag application patterns with Korean. The case is related to both Korean and Japanese surveys. Aux is a secondary verb in Korean and an auxiliary verb in Japanese. As a result of examining specific annotation patterns, it was found that Japanese aux not only assigned auxiliary clauses, but also auxiliary elements to add the grammatical meaning to the verb and form corresponding to the end of Korean. In UD annotation of Japanese, the basic unit of morphological analysis is defined as a unit of basic syntactic annotation in Japanese UD annotation. Thus, when using information, it is necessary to consider how to use morphological analysis unit as information of dependency annotation in Korean.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.45
• /
• pp.219-243
• /
• 2016

The life of Antonin Artaud exactly reproduces a very cruel drama. He lived in constant anguish and suffered from severe mental pain. This research will trace his thoughts in his writings while he was a prisoner of language. Artaud was a poet filled with anxiety about language, things, being, and thought. Whenever he tried to explain the mystery of being by means of mundane language, he experienced psychological agony. His poetic thoughts began to break down, because of his identity loss. Nevertheless, he was destined to grasp the world through language. Artaud had suffered from mental illness during his youth. His mental illness was associated with his difficulty in creating poetry. In this research, the letter, Correspondance avec Jacques $Rivi{\grave{e}}re$, is analyzed. The poet refers to "the collapse of the spirit's core, and the erosion of the fundamental thought that slips away" to convey his linguistic incompetence. Hereafter, he constantly demonstrated anxious mental symptoms. Even though he became mentally deranged, he maintained his consciousness, as is apparent in his writings. Also, his spiritual belief is reflected in his mental uneasiness. While he was traveling through the Tarahumaras area in Mexico, he was obsessed with its primitive belief in the Peyote rituals, and he immersed himself in performing them. His unchristian belief was the product of his mystical personality. Until his last breath, he did not give up writing. Artaud's mental derangement does not mean lunacy, but if one insists in calling it so, that is a metaphor. His derangement comes from his refusal to accept his limitations and from his aspiring to regard his body in the same light as his intellectual perceptions. His intellect could manifest more easily when his mind was elevated to the extreme. Artaud's lunacy is no different from that of a profound philosopher. The lives of poets who suffer from mental derangement are more poetic than the lives of those who do not. Artaud's atypical emotions provide a way of to measure our own limitations, helplessness, and resignation. His scream is nonsegmental but different from that of a mental patient. That difference is why people are interested in his works and wish to delve into his writings.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.44
• /
• pp.147-189
• /
• 2016

This study attempted to investigate the issue how stepmother's narrative was transferred to . For this agenda, the approach of this paper is described below to determine how Bbaengdeok's stepmother narrative was transferred episodically to . First, this paper started from the relation between stepmother narrative and affiliated with each root folk tale in Buddhist text. Among known as root folk tale until now, this paper investigated whether was the root folk tale affiliated to Buddhist literature. At that point, stepmother narrative showed relation with opening eyes motive. It has been reported that the text of opening eyes in Buddhist literature is originated from the south. This paper confirmed that 's stepmother narrative was related to Buddhist literature originated from south. Next, this paper investigated the background of opening eyes motive of stepmother types. After entering Gyeongpan , it formed Bbaengdeok narrative of Wanpan related to Literary geography of Jeollado enjoying space of Wanpan . There are two evidences for this. The first one is which was passed down around Jeollado. In the course of sudden Buddhist folklore's flow into the country, it is that combined stepmother narrative of sudden Buddhist literature with the characteristics of northern Buddhist literature which was reconstructed into son's filial behavior of northern Buddhist literature to make father's blinded eyes open. The other is the Buddhist trend of the late 18th Chosun when northern Buddhist literature and sudden Buddhist literature were combined. It appeared that stepmother narrative was formed in the Buddhist background of the late 18th Chosun when northern Buddhist literature and sudden Buddhist literature were combined.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.44
• /
• pp.411-430
• /
• 2016

One of central issues in the Literature and Science discourses during the Victorian era is the relation of physiology to psychology. Many thinkers tackle the question of whether or not psychic phenomena can be reducible to their physiological bases. For instance, Victorian physiologist William Benjamin Carpenter claims that there should be a boundary between physiological and psychological qualities. Yet, his contemporary writer Grant Allen contends for the reduction of psychology into physiology. In the essay, I discuss Grant Allen's work Physiological Aesthetics (1877) so as to eventually problematize his physiological reductionism. I especially highlight the paradox of his physiological aesthetics. In order to clarify my argument, I introduce two concepts: evolutionary aesthetics and physiological reductionism. On the one hand, Allen argues for the development of aesthetic appreciation. The gradual evolution from gaudy to serene colors, for instance, reflects the fine differentiation of sensory organs. He believes that the existence of varied aesthetic pleasures corresponds to the evolution of sensory nerve structures. Nonetheless, Allen ironically gives more weight to the commonality of aesthetic experiences than to this teleological ordering of aesthetic experiences. He argues that there is no fundamental difference among humans in terms of their aesthetic assessments. Furthermore, there is even no essential distinction among plants, animals, and humans in light of their aesthetic appraisals, he states firmly. Although he asserts the gradual advance of aesthetic feelings caused by the intricacy of nervous systems, he simultaneously trivializes the evolution of aesthetic appraisal. In the essay, I highlight this paradox in Allen's physiological aesthetics. It should be underscored, lamentably enough, that Allen seeks biological purity by erasing fine lines among physiology, psychology, and sociality. He estranges aesthetic experiences from subjective variations and their socio-cultural contexts. He makes great efforts to eliminate individual differences and socio-cultural specificities in order to extremely biologize aesthetic experiences. Hence, Allen's physiological aesthetics is marked as the politics of physiological purification.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.43
• /
• pp.265-288
• /
• 2016

This essay begins by discussing the issue of the definition of a catastrophe as a trauma by visual media and the problems that result. We assume a concrete approach towards these problems by examining the process through which 9/11 was defined as a "national trauma" in the exclusion of images of bodies falling from towers, which were some of the most shocking images in the media coverage of 9/11. The choice to exclude images of falling men from American visual media representations of 9/11 goes hand in hand with the tendencies of a contemporary trauma theory. This essay assumes that the representations in the U.S visual media depend on "antimimetic theory," one of the leading contemporary trauma theories, in order to validate its logic, and examines the limitations and problems of the theory. This work aims to examine the issue of the definition of a catastrophe as trauma by visual media on the basis on the "antimimetic theory" and the danger that results. Because the antimimetic theory, which the visual media in the United States uses to define 9/11 as trauma, emphasizes literal and unmediated representation of an external event, it lacks an understanding of the human aspects of the event. There is no way to intervene in the construction and interpretation of the trauma. As a result, the theory discourages active attempts to find a solution to the problems of the people directly connected with the event. Thus, it provides an opening for manipulative intervention of an external power. This essay attempts to provide a critical analysis of the "antimimetic theory" in order to help people who witness catastrophic events through various types of visual media, and to seek an alternative means of experiencing and responding to the trauma, that does not stem from the perspective of specific media outlets or external powers.

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