• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.1111-1130
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• 2011

Reading postmodern texts certainly situates readers in roles different from the ones we have been used to. Recently, postmodern metafiction forms a significant body of children's literature that is intended to challenge and transform the conventions of books in the digital age. While many studies have been done as to how child readers have capabilities to appreciate and interpret postmodern metafiction picture books, few studies on teachers and preservice teachers' reactions are not readily available. The role of teachers and preservice teachers are crucial for child readers to have access to affluent reading resources. This study discusses how preservice teachers read and respond to postmodern metafiction picture books using a deconstructive approach by means of binary opposites. Data was collected with 14 preservice teachers as to their likes/dislikes, reading levels, and reading paths about postmodern metafiction picture books. Expected pedagogical implications for literacy and language education were requested to address in their reading diaries and response papers. With their likes/ dislikes, since binary opposites always imply the hierarchy of power and value, the likes is apparently more valued and appreciated over their dislikes. This differentiated values are discussed in more detail with three recurring themes-Education, Morals and Behavior, and Tradition. With reading levels, there seems to be a gap existing between the authors' implied reader and literary critics' and the preservice teachers' ideal readers for the postmodern metafiction picture books. Although many studies have already revealed young readers' capability of appreciating postmodern metafiction, it depends a lot more on the teachers and preservice teachers whether children's right to have access to affluent literacy resources is respected or not. Preservice teachers' awareness of the potential of postmodern metafiction will work as an initial step to bring and realize the new reading path and new literacies in classrooms. By challenging metanarratives of children's literature, preservice teachers' readings of postmodern picture books reveals potentials to raise different reading paths and develop new literacies and other educational implications.

• English & American cultural studies
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.115-170
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• 2018

The objective of this paper is to explore Jim's itinerary journey in terms of both Girald's concept of triangular desire and Derrida's concept of event. According to the Girard's mimetic desire theory, human being's desire is not spontaneous like Romanticism thought, but mimetic to the mediator between the subject and the object. Thus there is no romantic desire understood as one's own desire except mimetic desire. In this regard, mimetic desire is compatible with the conception of Derrida's thinking of an event that is resistant to its absolute singularity. Because both mimetic desire and event cannot be defined by the fact of each spatio-temporal specificity, they can not be understood by a traditional metaphysics of presence. In this paper, by using Girard's concept of mimetic desire theory, I showcase why the tragic journey of Jim's telos as a mythic quest for his romantic ego(ipse) cannot help but face his death and by using deconstructive thinking of iterability, this paper analyzes why Jim's romantic ego imitated by the mimetic desire through a mediator cannot be encountered happily with his ipseity until his end. As a victim of triangluar desire, Jim's romantic ego is nothing but a notion of an ipsiety that has been defined in terms of presence central to metaphysics. This paper also makes an attempt to re-interpret some articles contaminated with post-colonial perspectives from Derridean views with deconstructive rigorous reading to those papers to uncover an essential ground of presence.

• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.50
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• pp.75-99
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• 2018

Makoto Shinkai, an animated film maker in Japan, has been featured as a one-person production system and as a 'writer of light', but his 2016 release of "Your Name" was a departure from the elements that characterize his existing works. At the same time, by the combination of the traditional musubi(むすび) story, ending these, it was a big hit due to its rich narratives and attraction of open interpretation possibility. As it can be guessed from the title of this work, this work shows the encounter between the Japanese ancient language and the modern language in relation to the 'name', and presents the image that the role of the name(language) is repeatedly emphasized with various variations in events for the perfect 'encounter'. In this work, the interpretations of $Signifi\acute{e}$ for characters and objects are extended and reserved as a metaphorical role of the similarity, depending on the meaning of the subject which they touch. The relationship between words and objects analyzed through the structure of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ is an epoch-making ideological discovery of modern times revealed through F. Saussure. Focusing on "the difference" between being this and that from the notion of Saussure, Derrida dismissed logocentrism, rationalism that fully obeyed the order of Logos. Likewise, dismissing the center, or dismissing the owner had emerged after the exclusive and closed principle of metaphysics in the west was dismissed. Derrida's definition of 'deconstruction' is a philosophical strategy that starts with the insight on the nature of language. 'Dissemination,' a metaphor that he used as a methodological concept to read texts acts as interpretation and practice (or play), but does not pursue an ultimate interpretation. His 'undecidability' does not start with infinity, but ends with infinity. The researcher testifies himself and identifies that we can't be an interpreter of the world because we, as a human are not the subject of language but a user. Derrida also interpreted the world of things composed of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ as open texts. In this respect, this study aimed to read Makoto's works telling about the meeting of a thing and a thing with name as a guide, based on Derrida's frame of 'deconstruction' and 'dissemination.' This study intends to re-consider which relationship the Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$ have with human beings who live in modern times, examine the relationship between words and objects presented in this work through Jacques Derrida's destruction and dissemination concepts, and recognize that we are merely a part of Signifiant and $Signifi\acute{e}$. Just as Taki and Mitsuha confirm the existence by asking each other, we are in the world of things, expecting musubi that a world of names calls me.