• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.65 no.4
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• pp.76-90
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• 2015

Based on a concept of Nietzschean nihilism, this study aimed at interpreting the nihilism in arts and its expressions, also analyzing the modern fashion collection from the same angle. The research was centered on arts after 1980, when post-modern formal destruction expanded in earnest and on the fashion collection after the 20th century, easily accessible to data. Particularly, it set 1994 nihilism collection by Alexander McQueen, a representative nihilist fashion designer as a starting point. Nietzsche mentioned that true arts may be achieved when Apollonian characteristics including a bodily sensory system and an idealization process and Dionysian characteristics including every human feeling are integrated. Besides, he emphasized the importance of an artist being represented as an image of ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$. The ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ image, reflected in arts and artistic nihilism, represents themes of violence/death, realistic/unrealistic expressions, human body/inhuman aversion materials and the transmutation of a form. Fashion collection expressions, owing to the special characteristic of the show form unlike other arts, were segmented as a realistic ${\ddot{U}}bermensch$ image using a model in a theme, expression, material and form. The theme of violence/death was divided into the death of human and a society. Human life/death was expressed as destruction of human weakness and self-identity, sexual objectification and violence, and social death as destruction and conflict of a class, nation, culture and nature. As for the expression, it was divided into the realistic expression of the primitive/natural and directing of an unrealistic atmosphere using a show.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.137
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• pp.277-321
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• 2016

Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy embraces characteristics of existential philosophy and philosophical anthropology. In his book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", Nietzsche defined human beings as an existence with innate possibility for change, beings that stand at the borderline between "the last man" and "the ${\ddot{u}}bermensch$", raising a question over the meaning of human being's existential healthiness. The anthropological symptoms that Nietzsche's philosophy deals with trigger existential problems, and healing these anthropological symptoms is a precedent to healing an existence. In Nietzsche's philosophy, the ${\ddot{u}}bermensch$ is presented as a prototype of practical man with a healthy existence, born from endeavors to heal the last man prototype of a decadence that was prevalent throughout Europe at the time. Nietzsche found the root cause of nihilism found in Europe in philosophy, religion, metaphysics, and Christianity, and attempted a genealogical investigation on this aspect. In so doing, a philosophical problem surfaced whereby only one truth was used to force diverse existential styles into a uniform style. Nietzsche intensively criticized philosophy and philosophers that only studied truths from metaphysical-Christian-moral perspectives, as they overlooked the foundation of true existence and presented human beings of a feeble mind and will as a result. Nietzsche emphasized the practical role of philosophy that can contribute to the human being's ascent and growth based on realistic conditions of human existence described as the earth, that philosophy that can serve as a basis for existential transformation of human beings and their lives. The task of philosophers is to lay the groundwork for the possibility of changes for all human beings and their realization. This existential practical foundation of philosophy can be called the ${\ddot{u}}bermensch$, as it is healthy man, the "greatest reality" as Nietzsche desired.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.28
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• pp.37-53
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• 2012

This paper examines 'an active nihilism' in Suk-je Sung's novels in detail. The focus of this study is formed from the critical mind in a critical perspective that in Korean novels before and after 2000s, characters who embody 'problematic individuals' of $Luk{\acute{a}}cs$ have disappeared and those close to 'active nihilists' has become the mainstream. The most representative example of this phenomenon is Suk-je Sung's novels. 'Active nihilists' in his novels are described as 'ascetics' who mastered various spheres such as 'billiard', 'baduk gambling', 'alcohol', 'dance', and 'book collecting', and so on. In the sense that they reject the transcendental conditions of the modern world and live in the space and time of play in which they can display their passion and potentiality to the maximum, they beings jumping over the 'reality principle'. Also, what they want to repeat is not the endless exchange of labor and capital according to the capitalist system of exchange but rather the repeated existence of their power and passion. This 'anthropology of power and passion' is 'active nihilism' which could be expressed as the 'subject of creating new value' and 'Dionysian affirmation' by Nietzsche. Suk-je Sung's novels sharply prove the stylistic essence of 'a novel' which has to create its own form every time, constantly renewing the narrative style of the past ideal model. In this respect, they are very problematic and his innovation of a form draws the attention. Further, this will certainly be the important object of research in the diachronic dimension of contemporary Korean novel.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.139
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• pp.105-131
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• 2016

The notion of responsibility, which has now gained a firm foothold as one of the fundamental notions of philosophy and its neighboring disciplines, became the subject of philosophical enquiry only in the 19th century by Kierkegaard, who delved into the morality of critical self-awareness in ethical responsibility of the absolute self; and Nietzsche, who put emphasis on the responsibility of the sovereign self in coping with the problems of the future. Nietzsche is the first philosopher who took issue with the diminishment (Verkleinerung) of humanity-what he called human being's greatest disease-that swept Europe at that time. Concerns about Europe's future were the key movens of Nietzsche's philosophy revolving around the advent of nihilism in Europe and its solutions. He prepared alternative solutions in deep awareness that the ethics of good and evil firmly rooted in the traditional metaphysics and Christianity would not even catch the depth and breadth of the big problem of globalization brought about by modernism, let alone solve it. Nietzsche devoted his whole life to disseminating the knowledge that the future of humankind depends on removing these old ethics. This article traces Nietzsche's reflections on the ethical event of responsibility and provides an overview of the purview and scope contained in the meaning covered by the notion of responsibility in his philosophy beyond common norms and values.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.37
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• pp.103-118
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• 1998

The purpose of this study is to describe the central argument of postmodern theory ; pro-vide a central concept about postmodernism for fashion ; identify the signficance of open fashion in the 20th century. Postmodern is used to refer to a body of social theory, a style of aesthetic expression, and to various social practics and economic conditions. In this paper, postmodern theory is interpreted as an anti-aesthetics propesed by Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Foster. The key principles and consepts of postmodern the-ory reflect and restate assumptions of nihilism influenced by the works of Nietzsche, being synonymous with the phrase philosophy of difference. The death of art, the end of progress, the will to the sublime, and the principle of pure difference support postmodern ideas, which could be the framework to interprete fashion phenomenon in postmodern condition.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.38
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• pp.369-392
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• 1998

In order to identify and describe the central core of fashion desire, the concept of“anti-aesthetics”and“open fashion”were analyzed based on the discourses of postmodernism dis-cussed in the field of sociology, culture, art and philosophy. In this paper, first, the new perspectives of fashion related to modernism and postmodernism were proposed, open concept, anti-aesthet-ics which is ephemerality but eternal ideology. Key principles of postmodernism as anti-aess-thetics mean the philosophy of nihilism proposed by Nietzsche indeterminency, the endd of original art(the death of art), the sublimity provided by Lyotard, and the pluralism to release human from the closed way of thinking, value, ideology. Second, the old and classical definition of fashion,“the differentiation of class”proposed by Veblen and Simmel has been changed into the“differentiation of taste”in postmodern condition. Third, the dichotomous system, that is, ration vs emotion, soul vs body, male vs female, culture vs nature, and so on has been deconstructed and disolved in the postmodern fashion phenomenon using the technique of anti-formalism, such as pastich, parody, bricolage an kitsch for the expression of sublimity and freedom of human.