Jerome Mcgann

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 3-16, 2016

The essay makes a Coda to the argument, first set out in my 2013 essay “Philology in a New Key” (Critical Inquiry 39.2 (2013): 327-46) and subsequently expanded in my book A New Republic of Letters: Memory and Scholarship in the Age of Digital Reproduction (Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 2014), that literary and cultural studies establish both their disciplinary and their public authority in the scholarly practices traditionally called philology. Shifting the emphasis from theory to method, I argue that the research agenda for humanistic research and education should be firmly located in ethics and pragmatics rather than in epistemology. In this respect the essay implicitly addresses the ongoing discussion of C. P. Snow’s celebrated 1959 Rede Lecture “The Two Cultures” and their respective critical procedures. Putting the focus on history and memory, I examine three exemplary cases: a short early poem by Byron, “Lines Written Beneath a Picture”; the journalist Ron Suskind’s account of an interview with Karrl Rove in which Rove sets forth what he saw as his practically operational view of history and political action; and finally, J. G. Sebald’s imaginative memoir The Emigrants, where Sebald illustrates a mode of memorial thinking that exemplifies the practice of scholars who pursue a philological method.

literary and cultural studies, philology, history and memory, Byron, J. G. Sebald,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Thadious M. Davis

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 17-33, 2016

In this paper, I am using the term, chaining, to signify the tight links, but open spaces in conceptualizing and articulating person and in recollecting and representing past in African American texts, such as Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, Cane by Jean Toomer, Jazz by Toni Morrison, Magic City by Yusef Komunyakaa, and The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead. Chaining is an active way not only of reading spatial practice in specific authors, but also of constructing the working of space in the African American imaginary. The links form connective tissue carrying ideas both forward and backward along a time-space continuum, and the open space within each link forms the contained and shaped ideas that are pushed or pulled along with the motion of the links, or that remain static when the links are unmoving and stable. Within the structure of the chain, within the openings between the metal pieces functioning as fastenings and as restrictive bondage, there is what I am calling “black space,” encircled and partly determined in terms of referential shape by being enclosed, yet at the same time open and operative. This encircled opening is the part of the chain that is overlooked, ignored, obscured, because like air it is essential, crucial, and necessary, but unobtrusive and unseen. I derive black space from conceptualizing chaining and its three dimensionality as organic to a mechanism that touches the body, that carries through the tangible representation of the public past a wider or broader access to the multiple and vexed aspects of black life in the United States.

person, past, links, black life, black space,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Monica Popescu

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 35-53, 2016

As the Cold War world was divided according to political and ideological alliances and specific terminologies developed on both sides of the Iron Curtain, Nelson Mandela’s use of the term “cosmopolitanism” in one context and “internationalism” in another situation highlights a complex conceptual map that has been flattened out after 1989. This article is focusing on tracing the developing transnational dimension of Nelson Mandela’s worldview during the Cold War as well as the terms of this engagement. What are the tenets of Mandela’s comprehensive international vision and how did it evolve during the apartheid years, as the leader spent much of this period behind bars, with limited contact with the world outside? To provide an answer to this question, this article looks at Nelson Mandela’s autobiographical writings and several speeches during his presidency to discuss the shaping of his transnational perspective. In order to discern the tenets of his international approach, the article engages with an array of terminology, ranging from cosmopolitanism to internationalism and from Pan-Africanism to Afro-Asian solidarity, which are placed in the context of the Cold War. Mandela used both liberal humanist terms that align with a cosmopolitan outlook as well as a lexicon of solidarity that resonated with leftist internationalism, as demanded by the ANC’s political alliances and attentive to the ideological tensions produced by the Cold War.

transnational perspectives, Nelson Mandela, cosmopolitanism, internationalism, Cold War,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Thomas N. Corns

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 55-67, 2016

When William, Prince of Orange (and future King of England, Scotland, and Ireland), landed his army at Torbay in the West of England on 5 November, 1688, some two hundred miles from London, among the usual materiel of war brought by the Dutch was a less usual piece of equipment: a printing press. The incident well illustrates the initiating moment of how widely was understood the domination of London over the principal media resources of England. Before 1642, English literary culture had become to a high degree centred on the metropolis of London and its adjacent royal court. As hostilities between king and parliament developed, that culture was considerably decentred. Coterie poetry migrated to print distribution. The experiences of Robert Herrick are particularly illuminating. Radical groups and individuals articulated a new cultural idiom from a geographical and symbolic periphery. But the hegemony of the centre was still sometimes resisted, predictably as in the case of John Bunyan, much less predictably in the case of the generally metropolitan figure of John Milton in his Paradise Regained . In fact, the study of the material circumstances of literary production have primarily focussed on economic and social aspects, but the topographical had a vital role, too, in explaining the complexities of the seventeenth century. The topographical distinctions and conflicts, between the centre and the periphery, inform the symbolic universe of at least some major writings from the Restoration period, as the periphery writes back.

Caroline literature, Restoration literature, literature of the English Civil War, John Milton, Robert Herrick,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Hyundong Ko

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 69-82, 2016

In the history of drama, censorship has been one of the obstacles theaters face. Particularly, politically controversial issues on stage can cause governmental opposition, but they are also some of the main sources that may promise a box office hit, which causes the tensions between governmental censorship and theatrical representation. In effect, the government and the theater enjoyed a symbiotic relationship in Early Modern England, but censorship was very real and serious as well. Presumably, then, Nathaniel Lee was aware of such tensions when writing Lucius Junius Brutus during a time in which the conflict between the Tories and Whigs over the Exclusion Bill grew more intense. However, his play faced governmental opposition, though no one knows clearly Lee’s attitude toward politics. Thus this paper attempts to examine politically sensitive elements in Brutus that caused opposition from the Lord Chamberlain. On the verge of the critical moment determining whether or not James would be excluded from the succession, Lee’s dramatization of the expulsion of Rome’s last king and the formation of the republic incurred suspicion as to whether Brutus was political propaganda on behalf of a certain party. Lee explores political turmoil in his deeper investigation into the justification for the revolution. In particular, the main characters’ political cause, morality, and fate reflect the mixture of light and shade engendered by the revolution, which is analogous to the ongoing tension witnessed by Lee’s contemporary audiences. Therefore, it is noteworthy that Lee maintains his balance in his dramatic rendering of Whiggism by staging the limitations of parliamentary government and the central figures of the revolution in Lucius Junius Brutus.

Nathaniel Lee, Lucius Junius Brutus, the Exclusion Crisis, the Popish Plot, Whiggism,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Geum Hee Park

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 83-101, 2016

This essay explores the process of Jhumpa Lahiri’s protagonist Gogol Ganguli’s identity formation in The Namesake by using M. M. Bakhtin’s concept of the “participative self.” In accordance with Bakhtin’s argument, all human beings have no choice but to be participative in their reality because they are drawn to certain emotional-volitional moments.I, the other, and I-for-the-other., and be in relation with others as long as they live. And in order for a novel to be a “fair” copy, it must not only contain detailed descriptions of the hero’s inner “I” actively interacting with others, but its content has to also become something historical and cultural. Nevertheless, by intervening in almost all moments of Gogol’s life and very often telling his story like her own, Lahiri fails to smoothly narrate all the processes of achieving his hero’s multicultural identity. In this novel, she characterizes Gogol as extremely passive and vulnerable, which causes him to look like a diffident and passive participant in his life. Therefore, Lahiri’s narrative failure results from Gogol’s lack of participation. From start to finish Gogol is portrayed as an inexplicably maladjusted person who can’t digest “awkward truths” in the Indian community, and can’t accept American culture actively. Methodologically, in The Namesake, there are many narratives about “myself” I see, “I” others observe, and “others” I perceive but there are also too frequently severance and omission of narration, which consequentially decreases the persuasiveness.

M. M. Bakhtin, participative self, Indian-American, passivity, diasporic identity,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Ewha Chung

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 103-119, 2016

This paper addresses Emily Bronte’s novel, Wuthering Heights (1848), in an attempt to redefine the three female protagonists, Catherine Ernshaw (mother), Isabella Linton (aunt), and Cathy Linton (daughter), and their individual struggles to reverse the “traffic in women” paradigm that Gayle Rubin illuminates in her essay on the political economy of gender. The novel’s ending returns to its starting point, but requires a reading that goes beyond the appearance of a “happily-ever-after” ending. Catherine, Isabella, and Cathy each attempt to reject their roles as victims within a patriarchal system and pursue their choice of roles in society through marriage. The problem of ‘who succeeds and why’ entails hardship, both physical and psychological, which in Isabella’s case ends in death, and in Catherine’s case goes well into the afterlife. Yet Cathy ultimately succeeds. Thus the question of ‘what each woman chooses and rejects in marriage and why’ leads the narrative through the nature of gender transactions and to its ultimate resolution.

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Rene Girard, traffic in women, kinship system,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Younglim Han

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 121-139, 2016

This paper studies Shakespeare’s intertheatricality in the context of Korea-Japan Shakespeare communication, and gives two productions as exemplary cases, that is, the Japanese production of Othello in Noh Style by the Korean director Lee Youn-Taek, and the Korean production of Shakespeare in the Year King Cheoljong 13 by the Japanese director Matsumoto Yuko. The two productions have certain features in common: they take the form of a restaging of the Japanese production of Shakespearean adaptation; they emphasize the experimental spirit as well as textual fidelity. But they differ in directorial approaches. Lee’s restaging draws attention on more collaborated than translated, while Matsumoto’s restaging on more translated than collaborated, the staging performed in an original setting. Thus Korea-Japan Shakespeare communication is characteristic of the movement of theatrical forms in a collaboration or translation format across geographical and historical space. Lee and Matsumoto combine elements from Korean and Japanese performances without establishing dominance over either of them. They present the products of a cross-pollination of theatrical traditions plumbing them to their full potential. Their restagings bring Shakespeare’s intertheatricality to the fore, reinforcing the notion that Shakespeare plays were written to be performed.

Shakespeare, communication, intertheatricality, Othello in Noh Style, Shakespeare in the Year King Cheoljong 13,영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory

Youngmin Kim

DOI: Vol.62(No.1) 141-147, 2016

영미문학, 문화연구, 비교문학, 비평이론, English and American Literature, cultural studies, comparative literature, critical theory