• Title/Summary/Keyword: autobiography

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No-Yong Park's Passing as Political Gestures

  • Park, Heui-Yung
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.64 no.2
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    • pp.219-238
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    • 2018
  • This essay examines the first-generation Korean American writer, No-Yong Park's falsehoods about his ethnic identity to suggest how and why he passed for Chinese, and to explore the political, anti-Japanese implications of these actions. The essay first identifies erroneous information circulating about his biographical background, presents some other materials that help us better understand the context in which he forged his Chinese identity, and then examines how he represented himself as Chinese in his published works. I would argue that Park's self-identification as Chinese was a resulting outcome of his naturalization caused by the Japanese colonial power in Korea and also one of his surviving strategies in the racist environment within American society. Looking at some of his works-including Making a New China (1929), An Oriental View of American Civilization (1934), Chinaman's Chance: Autobiography (1940)-and examining how he represented Korea and its people reveal how he tried to raise voice for them. By doing so, this essay illuminates Park's resistance to Japan's colonial discourse and power in Korea while revealing his lifetime passing as Chinese-far from his refusal to belong to the Korean community, or to acknowledge being Korean.

A Japanese American Female Writer's Tearing Down the Barriers: Lydia Minatoya's Talking to High Monks in the Snow and The Strangeness of Beauty. (재미 일본인 여류작가의 경계 허물기 : 리디아 미나토야의 『설중 고승여담』과 『미의 기묘함』)

  • Kim, Ilgu
    • English & American cultural studies
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    • v.10 no.2
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    • pp.1-27
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    • 2010
  • By taking the form of a fictional autobiography, a Japanese American woman writer Lydia Minatoya tries to solve the inexpressible confliction which Japanese Americans experience in their living in America. In her first published fiction, Talking to High Monks in the Snow, the writer faithfully tries to follow the Japanese I-story tradition where meandering of personal petit histories and frequent self-pities are constructed without solid action, characters and plot. Here appear many accidental others whom function as significant yet fleeting subalterns. In contrast, in the second fiction, The Strangeness of Beauty published seven years later, the I-narratives undergoes some drastic transformations by authorial intrusion, dramatic and haiku styles, and appearances of actorial agents. Just working as an invisible yet important stagehand (kuroko in Japanese) behind the stage of life, the author now handles her own self-inquiry through more controllable distance and maturity as directors or photographers often do. However, despite achieving dramatic actions and artistic elegance mainly thanks to her adoption of western masterpieces's grand narratives, Minatoya seems to stop in the midway in her tallying work of fiction with fact by delaying the larger imaginable conflict through which the temporarily gained autonomy can be turned into a disaster anytime. Nonetheless, the reader feels relieved and encouraged after recognizing the fragile Asian female self's transformation as a new, flexible and autonomous self by her unwavering contact with two contrasting cultures and providing silent minority female characters with gradually stronger and uncannier voices.

Boundaries and Differences in the Narrative of Passing: James W. Johnson and Nella Larsen (패싱, 경계와 차이의 서사 -제임스 W. 존슨과 넬라 라선)

  • Kang, Hee
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.53 no.2
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    • pp.307-333
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    • 2007
  • When W. E. B. Du Bois says that "the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line," such a statement clearly recognizes the significance of the issue of racial identity, a cultural phenomenon called 'passing.' Both Johnson in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Larsen in Passing confront this issue. Both novels, using the metaphor of passing, not only trace the racial anxiety and race politics of the time but also expose the unstable landscape of the established social and cultural boundaries of racial identity. Mapping out multiple meanings and various dimensions of passing, this paper argues how Johnson's and Larsen's narratives display the ambivalence of color line while they at the same time complicate, problematize, and destabilize the mainstream racial boundaries and differences. It furthers to delineate how the two writers, with difference, deal with the problem of passing, the significance of racial identity, and black middle class values along with its intraracial differences. Rather than draw a clear definition of and a definitive closure on passing narrative, this paper focuses on its complexities and undecidability, challenging every dimension of its established significations. It also explores the complex dynamic between passing act and individual identity, for passing here is not just a racially signified term but extends its significance to the other factors of identity, such as class and even sexuality. Johnson and Larsen open up a site for a newly emergent, modern racial identity for black middle class in the twentieth century American urban spaces. Both writers, illuminating the subversive and slippery nature of language in their passing narrative, clearly herald new, different forms of Afro-American writings and themes for the different century they face.

History of Race and Ethics of Friendship: The Caribbean Racial Politics and Jamaica Kincaid's Fiction Revisited through the Later Derrida's Political Philosophy (인종의 역사와 우정의 윤리 -후기 데리다를 통해 다시 본 카리브해의 인종정치학과 자메이카 킨케이드의 작품세계)

  • Kim, Junyon
    • Journal of English Language & Literature
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    • v.56 no.1
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    • pp.103-133
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    • 2010
  • The purpose of this paper is to make a critique of racial aspects of Caribbean literature more ethical through a constant concern with history and political philosophy. The first step I take for this purpose is a comparative reading of C. L. R. James's view of Toussaint L'Ouverture's position and Frantz Fanon's view of race and class in the historical context of the Caribbean power-relations. In so doing, I examine how Toussaint's and Fanon's wills to negotiation were thwarted in the New World history. To elaborate upon this ethico-political approach, I have recourse to the so-called later Derrida, focusing on his books, such as The Politics of Friendship, Of Hospitality, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, etc. Taking an up-close look at Derrida's thought, I argue that his political contemplation of ethics is as effective as his deconstruction of "otherness" in dealing with the nature of ethnic clashes in both the real world and minority literature. In the second half of my paper, I reexamine the issues of race, gender, and class in the three novels of Jamaica Kincaid - Annie John, Lucy, and The Autobiography of My Mother. It is conceivable that from the feminist perspective Kincaid's fiction has been read as a postcolonial Bildungsroman. In my supplementary attempts to this criticism, I reveal that the teenage narrator's precocious awareness is still under the colonial influence in the Annie John section. My analysis of Lucy contends that the reasons why the white woman fails to make friends with the young black woman should be sought in the long history of the U.S. racial politics. In the section of The Autobiography of My Mother, I discuss how difficult it is for a minority woman to liberate from the spell of history insofar as she is engaged in the issue of identity. In closing, I pose a need of consolation that literature may grant us by becoming able to produce a different interpretation on all the bleaker reality.

Emotional Influence and it's Implications of Childhood Housing Environment (유년기 주거환경의 정서적 영향과 그 의미에 관한 연구)

  • 정준현
    • Journal of the Korean housing association
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.43-51
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    • 2000
  • The study analyzed emotional influence and its implications of childhood housing environment with the environmental autobiography method. 222 essays of students in T University based on childhood memory are collected in identifying physical environment, emotional meaning and the value of places to them. Findings indicate that childhood housing environment is recognized as a influencing factor for making individual personality and the view of the world. The study also found that emotional recognition for the housing environment is given much weight in the indoor places, and to be the most affirmative adaptation attitude. Emotional influence of housing environment is significantly different depending on a residential area and house type, and each places of housing environment is charged in the variety emotional characters.

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Conscientization and the Discursive Construction of Identity Across cultures: Using Literacy Autobiography as a Reflective and Analytical Tool

  • Pederson, Rod
    • Cross-Cultural Studies
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    • v.20
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    • pp.149-182
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    • 2010
  • This paper reports on an ongoing study that utilizes the literacy autobiographies of 10 Asian and 10 Western graduate students from TESOL Masters programs in Korea and America as data for a cross cultural study on the discursive process of identity formation and the development of critical consciousness (Freire, 2000). While the data suggests similarities and differences between cultures in terms of the effects of education, social relationships, media, and religion, no definitive claims may be made due to the small size of the research corpus. However, analysis of the data revealed that only four of the narratives could be judged as engaging in critical introspection of individual subjects systems of knowledge, values, and beliefs, as opposed to the other narratives that were primarily descriptive of individual personal experiences. As such, this study found that while the willingness and ability to engage in the critical practices which lead to the development of a critical consciousness are similar across cultures, they may be mediated by the literacy practices inscribed in education, media, and other social practices.

Autobiographies of Teachers as Qualitative Inquiry on the Teaching Mathematics (교사의 자서전을 통한 수학 수업 연구)

  • Kim, Sang-Mee
    • Journal of Educational Research in Mathematics
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.435-453
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    • 2008
  • This study was on autobiographical traditions, in particular, autobiographies of teachers. First, autobiographical method was suggested as a kind of qualitative inquiry on the teaching mathematics. Second, as a case of autobiographical method, autobiographies of an elementary school teacher were presented. In the case, the author of autobiographies was also a researcher. It showed the struggles of elementary school teacher to know and to practice her teaching mathematical patterns. Autobiographies of teachers can be used as good sources for reflection of teachers, and also as a method for teachers education. And then, for communicating with teaching strategies among teachers in communities, they can be used. One the other hand, autobiographies of teachers can be powerful materials for researches on teaching.

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A Study on Emergent Novelty of Aldo Rossi's Architecture (알도로시 건축의 '창발의 새로움'에 관한 연구)

  • Ahn, Ji-Hye;Lee, Dong-Eon
    • Journal of architectural history
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    • v.22 no.3
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    • pp.37-48
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to evaluate Aldo Rossi's work as representation or non-representation, for some hold that the works of Aldo Rossi are representative and others say that they are non-representative. According to the three kinds of novelties appearing after Stephen Pepper's concept, "the breaking of reference" happens, and Aldo Rossi's concept, "the sense of deposition" Rossi's work is uncovered as non-representation. In order to clarify Rossi's work as non-representation, we are going to borrow Pepper's terms, intrusive novelty, emergent novelty, and naive novelty. The breaking of reference accompanies intrusive novelty to bring a sense of representation, emergent novelty to intuit a sense of non-representation, and naive novelty to a sense of newness of disorder. We hope to verify a hypothesis that Aldo Rossi's architectural thought and the architecture come from 'emergent novelty' on the basis of his two books, A Scientific Autobiography and Architecture of the City. Also this paper discusses qualitative aspects rather than visual aspects. The main concepts of emergent novelty are applied to Aldo Rossi's works and his thought. Finally this paper verifies 'the hypothesis' through revealing what Aldo Rossi means by the quality of suspension, the sense of deposition, and idea of the unfinished(repetition). Rossi's work is not textural reference of representation appearing after blocking, but qualitative reference of non-representation.

The Educational Value of Self-written Epitaphs Focusing on the Motive of Writing (자찬묘지명 글쓰기의 교육적 의의 - 자찬묘지명의 창작 동기를 중심으로)

  • Joo, Jae-woo
    • Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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    • no.35
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    • pp.195-219
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    • 2017
  • The distinctive character of a self-written epitaph is that it assumes one's own death. While containing the elements of an epitaph, it is distinctive in that it reveals motive of writing and scolds rather than praises one's own self. The motive for writing a self-written epitaph is two-fold. First, it seeks to tell the truth about one's own self. Second, it is a response to external shocks. The Educational Value of Self-written epitaph lies in leading the elderly to reflect on their lives today, and it bears the appearance of cooperative writing.

Analysis of Monetary Value of Art Mediated Urban Regeneration Programs in Declining Residential Areas - Focused on Cheong-ju Sajik 2-dong - (쇠퇴주거지의 예술매개 도시재생 프로그램에 대한 화폐가치 분석 - 청주시 사직2동을 중심으로 -)

  • Jeong, Yun-A;Hwang, Hee-Yun;Lee, Kyu-Sun;Hong, Eui-Dong
    • Journal of the Korean housing association
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    • v.24 no.5
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    • pp.39-48
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    • 2013
  • The goal of this paper is to assess the monetary value of each of the programs, by estimating the amount of willingnessto- pay for the urban regeneration programs that are being carried out in the art media space. Using the Sajik 2-dong in the City of Cheongju that is undergoing urban regeneration through 4 art mediated programs as the subject of this study, the monetary value was calculated through a contingent valuation method (CVM) that used double double-bounded question method. As a result of the analysis, the amount of willingness-to-pay for urban regeneration programs was found to be 36,250 won monthly average per household and, when this was converted to reflect all the households in the Sajik 2-dong area, the amount was estimated to be approximately 117 million won. In addition, in the case of the respondents who have experienced such programs, the amount of willingness-to-pay was found to be monthly average wise 12,880 won higher than those respondents who have not. As a result of the measurement of values based on art mediated urban regeneration programs, the Byeol-ddong-dae for children culture exploration program showed as having the highest value, followed by the local resident festival program, street puppet program and the resident autobiography program.