• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.125-140
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• 2000

The paper studies on the cooperation between the humanities & social sciences and natural science & technology in 1990's. The article showed policy alternatives about the crisis of humanities & social sciences. That was science wars and we heard that was announced by Sokal affair. In this article, the author inquired into the Korean research policy's crisis and presented the policy alternatives about the crisis of humanities & social sciences and natural science & technology in various ways. In the concrete, the policy alternatives are cultural critique of technology and science and science & development of domain about interdisciplinary studies at the humanities & social science and natural science & technology. In conclusion, First, the author showed the appraisal and institutionalization of interdisciplinary studies. Second, the researcher proposed few policy alternatives and developmental area of interdisciplinary studies between the humanities & social sciences and natural science & technology.

• Lingua Humanitatis
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.141-158
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• 2001

Criticism of today finds itself in an awkward situation, for it is now being transformed in the same way that literature and the arts were transformed by the avant-garde movements at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. It is characterized predominantly by a break with harmony and with the values of realism. As such, it is driven by a post-modem ethos, an artistic, social, and cultural phenomenon that veers toward open, fragmentary, and indeterminate forms. In this paper, I examine today's most urgent social and cultural issues with reference to artistic production and criticism, in order to illuminate the true nature of criticism. The outstanding questions in the world of art criticism are given in five categories: the lack of critical reality in argumentative criticism; the problem of artistic and literary production in global capitalism; the artistic mind and its consciousness of socio-historical ideology; anxiety of the rise of cyberjournalistic criticism; and the question of subordination to western systems in the field of interpretation and criticism. For my analysis, I have tried to formulate a three-dimensional critique structure that will help us organize the relationships between the points of argument: 1) criticism as a creative force behind the artist; 2) criticism as critique of artistic production; and 3) criticism as critique of other critics. This multi-layered structure will be appropriate to our task of interpretation and evaluation, as the proposed complex structure of criticism will be able to embrace the diverse aspects of our problematic argument. In the final analysis, my argument resolves itself into a question of art, more specifically into a question of criticism as a protective device of art in an age threatened by globalization and cultural monopolization.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.287-309
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to critique British imperialism in Bapsi Sidhwa's Cracking India (1991) by analyzing the partition of India from the perspective of nation, religion, and women. Dubbed "Punjabi-Parsi-Indian-Pakistani," Sidhwa is in a position where she can view the partition from an objective and neutralized stance. Rather than focusing on the lives of nationally well-known political figures such as Gandhi, Nehru, or Jinnah, Sidhwa delves deep into the miserable lives of the lower classes before and after the partition. First, I analyze the process of the partition, as it is performed through the manipulation of British imperialism. By adopting the viewpoint of an 8-year-old Lenny, who is the daughter of a Parsi family, Sidhwa is able to critique both British imperialism as well as the male-dominated Indian society where the treatment of women is unthinkably harsh. Second, I focus on the tragedy of the confrontation of three religions, Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh. Religious people fight each other while they were forced to move from South to North or from North to South. I argue that the religious conflicts have much to do with political issues. Third, I want to argue that women are the major victims of the partition. Ayah, Hamida, and Papoo are victims of male-dominated India during the partition. They symbolize the feminized India, which is exploited and victimized by British Imperialism. Even though Ayah is shattered by Ice-candy-man while working as a prostitute and dancer, she decides to return to her home in India, which shows her challenge against male-dominated India as well as against British colonialism. In conclusion, Sidhwa tries to heal the suffering of the Indian women who fell victim to male-dominated Indian society by criticizing the problems of British imperialism. In addition, by dealing with the lives of silenced people, Sidhwa asks readers not to forget the historical tragedy and not to repeat the tragedy again.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.32
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• pp.63-79
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• 2013

Tar Baby, Toni Morrison's fourth novel re examines the problem that black characters face in negotiatiating a place for themselves within a dominant culture, with respect to their own history and culture. The novel critiques the dominant socio economic and commodifying cultural space from which the black woman seems to have no escape. Jadine is a colonized subject, for as a fashion model she has surrendered to an aesthetics of commodification, and as a student of art history, she has internalized the capitalist ethic of the white culture industry. Though she has ensured her freedom, Morrison's critique of her separation from her family and culture is unmistakable. Interwoven with her narrative is Son's predicament, the stereotype of a black racist and her 'lover'. The novel ends with him at the crossroads of culture, yet signaling his passage to freedom through resistance. The paper arguments how Toni Morrison has envisioned the welfare of African American community by reconstructing the role of new black generation, as represented by Jadine and Son, whose new journey towards their self fulfillment just not only bring their personal freedom but also regenerates African American community by resisting dominant commodifying cultural.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.24
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• pp.5-18
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• 2011

This article offers a reflection on Frantz Fanon's diagnosis and analysis of French colonialism in Algeria. We will attempt to demonstrate that there is a concrete and clear connection between Fanon as the psychiatrist diagnosing the devastating effects of the French colonial system, and his subsequent political involvement in the Algerian revolution. This is not to say that each part does not contain valuable insights in their own rights, but rather to stress that without being read together, as a whole, one would miss a significant element in the understanding of the importance Fanon's thought subsequently came to play in the emancipation struggles of the colonized worldwide. Furthermore, we argue that it is crucial to understand the intimate connection between Fanon's psychiatric work, his diagnosis of colonial mental disorders, as well as diagnosis of the colonial system as such, and then his political engagement, in order to understand the particular context in which he favourably discusses the use of violence in the name of fighting against the oppressive system of colonialism. Above all, we argue that Fanon's critique of colonialism continues to spark controversy because it still represents the most powerful and incisive analysis of, as well as answer to, the troubled relationship between the blessed and the wretched of the earth.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.19-52
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• 2020

Southeast Asianists have a perennial tendency to question the reality of the region in which they are specialized. Yet while scholars have doubted, Southeast Asians at large have become increasingly sure that Southeast Asia does exist, and increasingly inclined to identify with it. This article summarizes a range of evidence to that effect, from opinion poll research and from the history of ASEAN and other pan-Southeast Asian institutions, and uses it to construct a critique of the relativistic view that Southeast Asia is a fluid and ill-defined concept. Southeast Asians today tend to see Southeast Asia as a cultural as well as a geographical and institutional unit. The nature of the perceived cultural unity remains unclear, and further research is called for in this area. There are reasons to think, however, that it reflects real inheritances from a shared past, as well as shared aspirations for the future.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.65-77
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• 2013

The purposes of this study were to document the fashions adopted by young women in the United States in the 1980s and to explore if and how the dynamic shifts toward postmodernist values influenced those fashion trends. Fifteen U.S. women who were college students in the 1980s were interviewed for the study. In analysis of the data, we focused on social changes during the 1980s and the cultural impact of postmodernism vs. modernism as influential factors. Both postmodern and feminist ideas challenged the mainstream cultural framework of capitalism. U.S. women's styles and behaviors concerning dress reflected characteristics of postmodern consumption patterns, which include nostalgia, ethnic dress, androgyny, eclectic and novel clothing combinations, surprising or humorous appearance, and nonconformity. Despite the critique of conformity and conservatism in dress that had emerged in the 1960s and remained in at least minority or subversive trends, the importance of brand names and designer labels increased in mainstream fashion. This study helps us better understand the dynamics of fashion as it reflects societal and value changes in a transitional time in history.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.23
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• pp.101-126
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• 2011

The principal purpose of this study is to analyse and critique how precisely the representation of women in the film Retrato de Teresa reconstructs the socio-cultural image of the female in the late seventies of Cuban society. The film of Pastor Vega is obviously an outstanding challenge on the new subject of 'women's liberation' against machismo in the context of the Cuban society. Teresa, the female character, as a socio-cultural image of the Cuban society don't focuses on the declarative and iconic images of the women's role as a revolutionary heroin that had appeared frequently in the films of the sixties, but she struggles for getting more realistic and pragmatic values such as women's emancipation to take rights in daily life. Therefore, the declaration of the emancipation of Teresa against machismo of her husband $Ram{\acute{o}}n$ has the special and symbolic meanings of social role and function of the film in the process of Cuban cultural revolution. The film concentrates on inducing the audience to make new perspectives such as women and gender issues in the daily experience of Cuban society where the machista ideologies and practices characteristic of a patriarchal society. Conclusively the female image of this film does not represent a national heroin, but reflects the women's desire, hope, and dreams in the society. Teresa makes the audience think of representations of the true meanings of the revolution in daily life, the machista ideologies in the patriarchal society, and the women's role and fuction in the Cuban society.

• Asian review of World Histories
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.5-44
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• 2013

This essay offers a historically based critique of the idea of "alternative modernities" that has acquired popularity in scholarly discussions over the last two decades. While significant in challenging Euro/American-centered conceptualizations of modernity, the idea of "alternative modernities" (or its twin, "multiple modernities") is open to criticism in the sense in which it has acquired currency in academic and political circles. The historical experience of Asian societies suggests that the search for "alternatives" long has been a feature of responses to the challenges of Euromodernity. But whereas "alternative" was conceived earlier in systemic terms, in its most recent version since the 1980s cultural difference has become its most important marker. Adding the adjective "alternative" to modernity has important counter-hegemonic cultural implications, calling for a new understanding of modernity. It also obscures in its fetishization of difference the entrapment of most of the "alternatives" claimed--products of the reconfigurations of global power--within the hegemonic spatial, temporal and developmentalist limits of the modernity they aspire to transcend. Culturally conceived notions of alternatives ignore the common structural context of a globalized capitalism which generates but also sets limits to difference. The seeming obsession with cultural difference, a defining feature of contemporary global modernity, distracts attention from urgent structural questions of social inequality and political injustice that have been globalized with the globalization of the regime of neoliberal capitalism. Interestingly, "the cultural turn" in the problematic of modernity since the 1980s has accompanied this turn in the global political economy during the same period. To be convincing in their claims to "alterity", arguments for "alternative modernities" need to re-articulate issues of cultural difference to their structural context of global capitalism. The goal of the discussion is to work out the implications of these political issues for "revisioning" the history and historiography of modernity.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.26
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• pp.95-121
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• 2012

Ce travail est de rechercher la vie litteraire d'Eug?ne Ionesco ? l'?poque de la Roumanie(1921~1937). Ionesco fait partie d'une cat?gorie d'?crivains(Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran, Tristan Tzara, Pana?t Istrati, etc) qui sont n?s en Roumanie et ont commenc? leur carri?re dans leur pays d'origine pour la continuer et l'achever en France. Eugen Ionescu devient Eug?ne Ionesco. Ce dernier repr?sente d?j? dans les ann?es 30 une personnalit? hors du commun. C'est un homme qui a deux patries, deux racines : une roumaine, une autre fran?aise. Sa vie est a ?t? marqu?e par ses publications des l'adolescence. Ils font l'objet de ce livre-portrait d'Eugen Ionescu, po?te et critique, ?crivain de langue roumaine. L'?tude de la jeunesse roumaine d'Ionesco nous m?ne sur un terrain p?rilleux, celui de la biographie, plus pr?cis?ment des ann?es d'adolescence, de jeunesse et d'apprentissage d'un ?crivain qui a masqu? cette p?riode de sa vie. Nous avons pr?fer? tracer une biographie intellectuelle plutot qu'?num?rer des d?tails anecdotiques. La projection d'Ionesco dans son oeuvre est le r?cit de ses propres aventures intellectuelles. Une part importante de notre travail est consacr?e ? l'anlayse d'un livre de critique Nu(Non) de jeune Ionesco. Nous avons utilis? le texte de la version fran?aise publi?e en 1986 pour ce travail. Pour Ionescu le Roumain, le po?te Ionesco, ?l?gies pour des ?tres minuscules, nous avons consult? une th?se d'Ecaterina Cleynen-Serghieve La jeunesse litt?raire d'Eug?ne Ionesco et puis l'?tude de Gelu Ionesco sur la carri?re roumaine d'Ionesco. Nous nous sommes aussi r?f?r?s ? divers documents comme Notes et contre-notes(1966), D?couvertes(1969), Journal en miettes et Pr?sent pass?, Pass? pr?sent(Mercure de France), et les entretiens avec Claude Bonnefoy pour comprendre la personnalit? d'un jeune ?crivain roumain.