Sunyoung Ahn

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.001 Vol.71(No.2) 177-199, 2025

Theorized by E. P. Thompson, moral economy refers to an unwritten but communally shared consensus among people about what economic practices are fair and acceptable, thereby preserving the idea of the common good. Drawing from this, I argue that Douglas Stuart’s Shuggie Bain (2020) promotes the moral economy of the welfare state, which I define as the collective moral understanding and a tacit social agreement that a person should be given social protection in times of predicament so as not to go hungry, homeless, or sick without care. In so doing, the novel shares with some postwar British fiction a long-standing preoccupation with cultivating collective care and responsibility, or what Kelly M. Rich calls the “reparative potential” of the welfare state. Admittedly, because of the lack of a social security system in the Thatcherite Glasgow that Stuart depicts, the novel appears to have no choice but to promote the narrative of self-reliant, individualist survival in its depiction of a boy burdened by numerous hardships: as one character puts it, “you can only save yourself.” But the very dearth of social protection in the story has the effect of prompting readers to contemplate positively about social welfare, concluding on its indispensability for the characters who become the victims of numerous social ills. Even with the many problems that the idea of the welfare state entails, with its potentially punitive and stigmatizing practices, the novel suggests that it can serve as the bare minimum in the worst of situations.

Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain, moral economy, welfare state, Thatcherism

Seung Cho

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.002 Vol.71(No.2) 201-236, 2025

This article aims to study the fragility of skepticism in Shakespeare’s Macbeth by illuminating the protagonist’s gradual intellectual decline, which stems from his departure from skepticism. Focusing on Macbeth’s encounters with key skeptical moments in the play, it argues that his downfall is largely due to his inability to resist cognitive urges and confirmation bias, as well as his failure to embrace epistemological modesty―the lingering sense of uncertainty that prompts one to suspend judgment rather than act precipitously. Instead of providing a broad overview of the historical and theoretical backgrounds of Shakespeare’s skepticism, the article carefully traces Macbeth’s choices in the face of radical uncertainty, examining how his avoidance of cognitive disorientation ultimately backfires, depriving him of a tragic grace that goes unappreciated in the end. The primary purpose of this article is to outline the distinguishing features of Shakespeare’s skepticism: 1) its sympathetic and critical engagement with the precarious nature of truth, which is often both excruciating and relentless; 2) its rejection of dogmatic complacency based on groundless certainty; and 3) its endorsement of epistemological modesty and acceptance of uncertainty, both of which would transform a sense of weakness into a source of strength and a foundation for cognitive abundance, albeit at the cost of tranquility.

Shakespeare, Macbeth, skepticism, epochē, epistemological weakness

Inson Choi

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.003 Vol.71(No.2) 237-262, 2025

Violence and suffering form the central axis of Han Kang’s literary world. Through depictions of violence, she explores the essence of human existence and humanity while contemplating ways to overcome it. The Vegetarian stands as the genesis of this literary exploration, confronting the interplay between violence, desire, and transformation. The novel portrays Yeong-hye, who rejects meat consumption and aspires to shed her humanity through a process of “becoming-plant,” her brother-in-law, tormented between the most sublime beauty and grotesque desire, and In-hye, burdened by caregiving and paralyzed by helplessness in the face of misunderstanding. Through these figures, Han exposes the raw brutality of human nature while reflecting on the existential inescapability of violence. Rich symbolism enhances Han’s lyrical prose and serves as a labyrinth of connections, organically linking the novel’s three parts and evoking the tragedy of human existence. Among the major motifs, a white-eye, winged things, and the mother bird embody the tragic lives of Yeong-hye, In-hye, and In-hye’s husband, respectively. These symbols function as vehicles to expose both the violent essence of humanity and the fragile possibility of transcending it. This study conducts an in-depth textual analysis, focusing on the symbolism of birds alongside other key motifs such as the face of the beast, the Mongolian mark, uterine hemorrhage, and flaming trees. By examining these elements, this paper offers a deeper perspective on violence and redemption, contributing to a more nuanced and profound understanding of The Vegetarian and its existential themes.

Han Kang, The Vegetarian, white-eye, Mongolian Mark, Flaming Trees

Seokyeong Choi

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.004 Vol.71(No.2) 263-288, 2025

This article examines how Virginia Woolf’s feminist narrative of difference shapes her use of detached description in Three Guineas and Jacob’s Room. I argue that Woolf employs feminist ekphrasis, a politically charged descriptive strategy emphasizing distance and difference, to subvert patriarchal representation in both works. Pairing Jacob’s Room―Woolf’s first experimental novel―with Three Guineas, her anti-war and feminist essay, this study explores how both works employ description as a strategic tool to expose gender divisions in public spaces. In Three Guineas, Woolf contrasts the visible symbols of masculine authority―exemplified by the five illustrations of the male ruling class―with the obscured lives of women on the margins. In both texts, description subverts the traditional hierarchy of the male-dominated public sphere and the hidden private realm of women, defamiliarizing symbols of male power while summoning female agents standing at the threshold of public life. The embodied female narrators in both works, each grounded in a specific historical reality, reinforce this dynamic. Acknowledging gender difference, these narrators, positioned as outsiders, depict characters with complexity while flexibly adjusting their distance and access. In Three Guineas, the narrator’s emotional distancing in description resists the imposed uniformity of feeling dictated by British imperialism’s visual politics. In Jacob’s Room, the narrator’s distance presents Jacob in fragments, resisting a fixed or essentialized portrayal. Ultimately, this essay explores how Woolf’s unique use of ekphrasis shape the reader’s experience, arguing that Woolf invites readers to critically engage with unknowability, as an ongoing, intersubjective encounter with the other.

Jacob’s Room, Three Guineas, Woolf’s feminist ekphrasis, difference, distance

Soomin Kim

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.005 Vol.71(No.2) 289-314, 2025

This essay reads the genre-hopping publishing history of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford (1851-53; 1853) in the context of nineteenth-century sociospatial dynamics in favor of metropolitanization. What originally began as a non-fiction essay based on Gaskell’s youth spent in Knutsford, Cheshire for a transatlantic audience was repurposed into a self-contained fictional sketch and soon thereafter adapted for serial publication before being released as a single volume. The evolving narrative structure, whereby the largely static, autonomous descriptions of provincial life of the earlier chapters or installments gradually give way to an accretive, thickening plot imbued with a propulsive sense of history that seeks resolution from the eponymous town’s embeddedness in the modern global network of trade, commerce, and empire, formally corresponds to the tales’ shift in sociospatial register from the regional to the provincial. Notably, this turn manifests in the recurring presence of male characters whose foreign-coded masculine difference drives the provincial society’s deepening contact with modernity. The piecemeal process by which Cranford was produced―formally, thematically, ideologically―as a provincial novel to be ranked among the exemplars of the subgenre’s high-water mark during mid-century affords insight into the mutual entanglements of space and narrative by which was engendered a literary imagination of locality, community, and world quintessentially modern in its provincialism.

Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford, provincialism, regionalism, metropolitanization

Hu Xing

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.006 Vol.71(No.2) 315-342, 2025

Gary Snyder’s ecological vision resonated deeply with the 1960s countercultural movement. His critiques of consumerism, militarism, and industrial expansion―and their destructive impacts on the natural world―shaped his integrated perspective on social and environmental issues during that period. Moreover, his advocacy of bioregionalism and eco-communal living played a formative role in the emergence of the back-to-the-land movements of the early 1970s. Taken together, these contributions reflect Snyder’s broader ecological vision, which sought to reimagine human relationships with nature. While Snyder’s ecopoetics has often been viewed through the lens of deep ecology, his work closely aligns with Murray Bookchin’s theory of social ecology, particularly in its critique of capitalism, social hierarchies, and centralized economies as fundamental drivers of environmental degradation. By integrating ecological consciousness with radical social critique, Snyder’s work challenges mainstream environmental discourses that isolate nature from human systems of power and governance. His poetry and essays emphasize the interconnectedness of social oppression and ecological crisis, locating environmental destruction within broader structures of economic exploitation and political control. This paper seeks to illuminate Snyder’s ecopoetics through the lens of social ecology, and offers a more nuanced understanding of his literary and activist legacy. By connecting Snyder’s critique of capitalism with his vision of ecological reinhabitation, the paper aims to reveal how, extending beyond deep ecology, Snyder’s ecopoetics helped shape the emerging environmental consciousness of the 1960s counterculture.

Gary Snyder, Murray Bookchin, Social Ecology, Deep Ecology, Counterculture Movement

Yen-hi Yun

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.007 Vol.71(No.2) 343-364, 2025

This paper takes the memoir of Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart as the research object, focusing on analyzing how fragmented musical narratives in the text construct cross-cultural identity. By integrating transmedia narrative―trauma and cross-cultural identity theories, it shows how a text-album matrix reconfigures trauma healing and identity formation in the diaspora. Findings include: Trauma narratives acquire dual significance through the integration of soundscapes and the music serves as an alternative mourning ritual, constructing what may be termed a “symphony of words,” while the album “Psychopomp” mirrors the affective structure of the text; Korean onomatopoeia transforms the reading experience into an auditory ritual, while integrating text with pop music creates a compelling bridge between the realms of life and death; Cultural identity struggles arise through sound―Western pop, traditional music, karaoke memories, and hymns and illustrate second-generation immigrants’ challenges with assimilation as well as lost traditions; The memoir is structured to mirror the organization of the album, creating a “readable album” that turns live performance into textual dynamics. This paper contends that musical narratives reconfigure traumatic memory into processes of subjective renegotiation through the application of strategic soundscape techniques, thereby facilitating the dynamic construction of immigrant identities.

Korean American literature, Crying in H Mart, Musical narrative, Poetics of trauma, Cross-cultural identity

최지원 Jiwon Choi

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.008 Vol.71(No.2) 365-387, 2025

This study examines how Edwidge Danticat’s novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) portrays the transmission of violence rooted in Haiti’s history of colonial oppression and authoritarian rule, revealed through the generational trauma experienced by Haitian women. While some Haitian readers criticize the novel’s depiction of virginity testing as a cultural misrepresentation, their responses reveal tensions between individual and collective identity, highlighting how the narrative expands empathy from the protagonist’s pain to Haiti’s shared trauma. Against the view that postcolonial narratives in the global market risk commodifying Western notions of individuality through character-centered empathy, this study argues that Danticat’s novel resists such reduction. Drawing on Theory of Mind and postmemory, this paper investigates how the novel positions not just the individual but the group as the subject of cognition and empathy. Whereas prior postmemory scholarship has focused on visual archives like photographs of the Holocaust in reconstructing the past not directly experienced, Danticat foregrounds acts of listening, transforming personal trauma into a communal auditory experience. The novel demonstrates how listening enables empathy, opening possibilities for engaging with collective identity. Listening-based empathy in Danticat’s work serves as a cognitive bridge between individual and communal memory, offering a new perspective on how postcolonial literature shapes narrative empathy toward collective suffering.

Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory, narrative empathy, Theory of Mind, postmemory, 에드위지 당티카, 『숨, 눈동자, 기억』, 서사적 공감, 마음이론, 포스트메모리

진경혜 Kyoung-hye Jin

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.009 Vol.71(No.2) 389-413, 2025

This article examines Erika Meitner’s Copia drawing on Michel de Certeau’s concepts of “walkers,” “spatial practices,” and “bricolage.” As a poet dwelling in American suburban-urban areas, Meitner engages with everyday spaces shaped by consumer culture and its decline. While rendering her experiences in “non-lieux,” like motels, Walmarts, abandoned retail spaces marked by labelscars into her poems, she captures the insatiable greed behind the 2008 economic recession: “abundant and/ impossible to fill.” Most of the poems in Copia operate as bricolages, incorporating “poached” materials taken from the streets: brand names, store signs, news clips, photographs, interviews, the Bible, and the Yiddish of her grandmothers. These elements coalesce into symbolic and tactical narratives that resist the totalizing and strategic languages of the institutionalized commercialism. Through her visit to Detroit in 2010, Meitner witnesses the transformation of abandoned places into sites fostering meaning, community, and artistic expression―from art projects like the Heidelberg Project to impromptu jazz performances in broken neighborhoods. Following Certeau, Meitner envisions the city as a “mobile” and metaphorical space shaped by the footsteps and improvisations of its inhabitants. This study asks whether it is possible to capture the full complexity of urban life―including its ephemerality―without fully engaging with the issues of race, gender, and imperialism. While perhaps not comprehensive, Meitner’s work presents a compelling faith in the resilience and creativity latent in the spatial practices of urban quotidian walkers.

Erika Meitner, Copia, Michel de Certeau, spatial practices, bricolage, 에리카 마이트너, 『풍요』, 미셸 드 세르토, 공간의 실천, 브리꼴라주

김서현 Seohyun Kim

DOI:10.15794/jell.2025.71.2.010 Vol.71(No.2) 415-452, 2025

In the early twentieth century, African Americans sought to bring into public attention their literary achievement in poetry. The publication of numerous anthologies and bibliographies that include the section dedicated to “Negro Poetry” reflects their efforts to take ownership in organizing the knowledge and legacy of African American poetry. While anthologies are often criticized for canonizing well-established writers and their selective works, this study proposes that African American poetry anthologies published in the 1920s worked to add diversities and dynamics to the formation of the African American poetry category, resisting its fixation and essentialization. This study adopts a critical data studies approach by visualizing data from major African American poetry anthologies of the 1920s as a network graph and particularly paying attention to the data that has low connections with other nodes. I investigate each editor’s reasoning behind their inclusion of specific poets and their poems that might have otherwise gone unrecognized even by many African Americans. Furthermore, although the network graph suggests that Alain Locke’s The New Negro recirculates a selective group of already established authors, this paper closely examines three poems included outside the poetry section of The New Negro. By analyzing how Locke employs different sections and the strategies of categorization, this paper argues that his editorial practice aligns with the efforts of other African American poetry anthology editors of the 1920s to conceptualize “African American poetry” as a category characterized by polyphony and open to critical reflection.

African American Poetry, Alain Locke, Digital Humanities, Network Graph, Critical Data Studies, 미국 흑인 시, 알랜 로크, 디지털 인문학, 네트워크 그래프, 비판적 데이터 연구