Ja Yun Choi

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 511-538, 2023

This article examines the ways in which Olaudah Equiano employs the various forms and meanings of the word “interest” in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789). Despite the word occupying a central place, both in the title and main text, its significance has not received much critical attention. It is my argument that Equiano employs “interest” to address the limitations of sentimental rhetoric, a key device that critics assert abolitionists used in their writings during this period. Although he draws from the well-established conventions of sentimental literature to argue for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, Equiano also adopts a critical stance towards the rhetoric of sensibility. He claims that in addition to arousing boredom and revulsion with its detailed descriptions of the slaves’ sufferings, sentimental rhetoric does not necessarily lead people to engage in benevolent behavior and can also help reinforce the hierarchical relationship that exists between the British and the slaves. By examining how Equiano not only uses the emotional and moral meanings associated with “interesting” to sustain the attention of his readers, but also employs the economic meanings associated with “interest” to foster benevolence and envisage a more equal partnership forming between Britain and Africa, I argue that he utilizes the rhetoric of interest to supplement that of sensibility. In so doing, I seek to defuse some of the criticism Equiano has received from modern critics for appealing to economic interest as a means of bringing an end to the slave trade.

Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative, abolition, sentimental rhetoric, interest

Pin-chia Feng

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 539-564, 2023

The first Chinese arrived in New York in 1847 and founded Manhattan’s Chinatown. New York later saw a significant influx of Chinese in the late 1870s when anti-Chinese violence was mounting in the American West; thus began the extended history of the Chinese American community in the Big Apple. While there are differences and similarities among the different generations of Chinese immigrants, new immigrant writing is marked by a special interest in metropolitan New York. This Atlantic turn away from the predominantly transpacific narrative of Chinese America may have been influenced by the fact that in the 1970s New York City replaced San Francisco as the largest gathering place of Chinese Americans in North America. This ethnogeographical shift is faithfully reflected in the immigrant writing of the new millennium, such as Lisa Ko’s The Leavers (2017). In The Leavers, Ko reveals her strong racial and social consciousness by writing about the precarious lives of undocumented Chinese workers and the affective cost of transracial adoption in her debut novel. Peilan, the immigrant mother from Fuzhou, goes into debt to be smuggled into New York only to find herself entrapped in another sweatshop. Her American-born son Deming is adopted by a white family when she is imprisoned in a camp for undocumented immigrants. This paper analyzes the struggles of transnational negotiations in The Leavers, emphasizing particularly on the son’s perspective regarding issues of transracial adoption and narratives of return, to explore the complex and changing ethnic historiography of Chinese America.

Chinese American literature, transnational adoption, narrative of return, Lisa Ko, The Leavers

Jaecheol Kim

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 565-592, 2023

This essay surveys the biopolitics illuminated in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. By contextualizing the play against the recent debates on state power and disease control among philosophers, this piece discusses Shakespeare’s representation of biopolitical governance. Like the Agamben-Žižek debate on the Covid-19 pandemic, Shakespeare’s drama discusses law, the state of exception, biosecurity, and governmentality―the kernel of biopolitics―in a time of the rapid dissemination of syphilis. Measure for Measure is Shakespeare’s most haphephobic narrative, revealing the way Shakespeare identified physical distancing and masking as a form of proper governance. By surveying the topic of disease control (both literal and metaphorical), this essay discusses the irony of biopolitics in Shakespeare’s imagination, where physical contact is ineluctable to maintain the population and community even when an epidemic is most rampant. The lingering irony of Shakespeare’s narrative of epidemic and juridical order is that establishing the constitutional body is not the deepest wish of power. Instead, the real agenda of the state is to maintain a prolonged (or perpetual) judicial exception or vacuum. Perhaps, the duke’s biopolitical control is successful, keeping the social distance necessary for epidemic control and sustaining the population by harnessing excessive sexuality. The paradox, nonetheless, is that this new order is feasible only when he suspends the legal system that he wants to establish. After all, Measure for Measure reveals that biosecurity is necessary to foster life and support the Viennese population, but its limit reaches extreme biosecurity acquired only by sacrifice.

Agamben-Žižek Debate, biopolitics, biosecurity, immunity, state of exception

Soh Yeun Kim

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 593-617, 2023

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story, “On Monday of Last Week,” explores the intricate intersections of race, gender, and class through Kamara, a black Nigerian immigrant who babysits for Josh, a child of Neil and Tracy’s multiracial family. This article first analyzes the ways in which racializing surveillance and gender norms reinforce Kamara’s role as the Other within the ostensibly multicultural ideal. Positioned as a repository of black Africanness and black motherhood, Kamara is bound by racializing and gendering structures that overdetermine her position as a black African nanny-mammy. Using Simone Browne’s “dark sousveillance” as a theoretical lens, this paper dissects Kamara’s intersectional subjections and explores the transformative potential embedded in her being as the invisible but present “dark matter” discussed by Howard Winant. The examination of the possibility of dark sousveillance extends to another black female character Tracy. Her “willful absence” offers insights into alternative forms and notions of black motherhood, suggesting the possibility of subversion against normative roles. Kamara’s queer desire for Tracy further enriches the discourse on dark sousveillance, unveiling the force of erotic resistance that allows for the exploration of the multiplicity of blackness and subjectivity. However, this paper also highlights the contingent nature of these tactics; they may not radicalize the system fully and immediately. Nevertheless, within its limitations and constraints, this paper sees the nuanced dynamics of dark sousveillance and its strategic opacity in the narrative as a tool of resistance and empowerment for racialized and gendered subjects in countering racializing surveillance.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, dark sousveillance, willful absence, racializing surveillance, dark matter

Jieun Park

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 619-642, 2023

This paper examines Colson Whitehead’s sixth novel, The Underground Railroad, with a specific focus on how it adopts and adapts elements from the American slave narrative genre. Rooted in the tradition of nineteenth-century American slave narratives, the novel incorporates numerous allusions to the experiences and voices of enslaved African Americans, particularly highlighting Harriet Jacobs. To contextualize this exploration, the paper begins with a concise historical overview of the American slave narrative as a distinct genre within African American literature. This overview traces the genre’s evolution from confessional autobiography to a more complex novelistic narrative, emphasizing its unique characteristics and intricate relationship between the black narrator and white reader. Key aspects such as the genre’s hybrid nature, adaptability, innovation, and position at the intersection of diverse literary forms are examined alongside its strategic intents regarding black subjects. The Underground Railroad is exemplified as a prime illustration of this significant generic hybridity, reflective of the genre’s historical and literary evolution that challenges white readers’ expectations of a historical and veracious recounting. The paper further argues that the continued perseverance and reproduction of the genre, enduring nearly two centuries post-emancipation, mirrors the ongoing political and social challenges faced by African American communities. The relevance of the slave narrative genre extends beyond its historical significance, addressing current issues within the African American community. The analysis emphasizes the novel’s significance as both a historical artifact and a contemporary medium that remains pertinent in articulating and responding to the lived experiences of African Americans.

Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad, slave narrative, generic hybridity, interstitiality

황훈성 Hoon-sung Hwang

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 643-673, 2023

This article seeks to explore an Epicurean or Post-Darwinian understanding of the phenomenon of death conceived in Being Dead. Jim Crace, arguably as a disciple of physicalism vigorously preached by Dennett or Dawkins defines death as termination of physical activities of human consciousness which is entirely composed of matter. Being Dead is a fictional representation of Crace’s investigation of the phenomenon of death. My contention is that despite the author’s hard line physicalism, this novel leaves a room for interpreting death in terms of religious naturalism especially applicable to the two protagonists Joseph and Celice. The novelist’s physicalist stance is vividly demonstrated in the description of the two bodies at the brink of life and death; the narrator resorts to scientific jargons covering physics, chemistry, microbiology and calculus where there is no room for the Soul or Spirituality. In accordance with physicalist doctrines, there does not exist a qualitatively significant difference between homo sapiens and ordinary worms in that both are necessary outcomes of biological evolution. The transformation of the narrator from physicalist to religious naturalist may be theoretically supported by Dworkin, who has endeavored to shift the centerpiece of the controversy from objective truth to cultural values and ethics. Different from Dawkins or Dennett, he cherishes humanist values such as 1) independent and existentialist life, 2) viewing nature as sublime reality as well as objective reality. To sum up, Crace’s Being Dead is a masterpiece that launches a quest for a new religious belief system that may fulfill human wishes to live a fuller life on earth.

physicalism, religious naturalism, Crace, Being Dead, death, 물질론, 종교적 자연주의, 짐 크레이스, 『사후』, 죽음

정윤길 Youn-gil Jeong

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 675-695, 2023

This paper examines Arthur Miller’s iconic play, Death of a Salesman, through the lens of Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity. Bauman’s theory suggests that contemporary society is characterized by fluidity, instability, and the erosion of traditional structures. Death of a Salesman serves as a poignant exploration of the consequences of liquid modernity on individual lives, particularly focusing on Willy Loman. The analysis highlights how the play encapsulates the anxieties, disorientations, and sense of displacement experienced by individuals navigating a rapidly changing and uncertain world. The paper also examines the author’s portrayal of Willy and his sons and how their struggles resonate with Bauman’s ideas. The paper suggests Willy’s anxiousness is a metaphor for his psychological situation where he is still searching for and longing for something fixed while living in a fluid modern world, and I consider Biff’s shoplifting as a personalized shopping ritual that satisfies the anxiety about his identity and his final decision as a way of accepting the incomplete state of his identity and trying to find his identity again there. Based on the premise of Bauman’s connection to the work, the paper analyzes the meaning of the sense of fear in Willy’s inner world depicted. The paper examines the implications of the conflict between the fluid nature of the salesman’s profession and Willy’s perception of the world through a specific case analysis. As a result, I argue that Death of a Salesman is a work that is deeply imbued with the signs of Bauman’s fluid modernity.

liquid modernity, fear, ethical dilemmas, identity, Zygmunt Bauman, 액체 현대, 공포, 윤리적 딜레마, 정체성, 지그문트 바우만

김은형 Eunhyoung Kim

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 697-728, 2023

In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates explores the concept of “black disembodiment” within the context of the Black Lives Matter era. He argues that even 150 years after the abolition of slavery, this issue persists due to deeply entrenched national ideologies in the United States, including liberalism, the American Dream, the American Enlightenment, and individualism. The hierarchical and exclusionary nature of these ideologies has not only resulted in the destruction of black lives but has also contributed to environmental degradation, all under the pretext of a sovereign individual’s pursuit of freedom and property through their dominance over others. Consequently, the destruction of black lives and the natural environment has become an inevitable outcome of this country’s social contract. Various attempts at race reform, including Supreme Court decisions, civil rights movements, and constitutional amendments, have faltered primarily because they are steeped in the dominant ideologies of the nation, thus failing to effectively address the reality of black disembodiment. Coates implores us to reject the prevailing order of hierarchy and domination perpetuated by these national ideologies. Instead, he calls for the embrace of mutual equality and vulnerability. This perspective is essential for ending the destruction of black lives and addressing the impending climate crisis, which threatens everyone, regardless of their race. In this manner, Coates’s memoir highlights the inherent limitations of current ideologies and underscores the urgency of fostering a new communal discourse rooted in an awareness of our interdependence and vulnerability in the face of ongoing violence against black lives.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, Black Lives Matter, destruction of black bodies, vulnerability, post-civil rights era, 타너하시 코츠, Black Lives Matter, 흑인 몸의 파괴, 취약성, 후기 민권 시대

김소연 Soyoun Kim

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 729-752, 2023

Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) delves into the culture of curio exhibitions in the 19th century, satisfying readers’ visual curiosity by showcasing “human curiosities” within the novel. Simultaneously, the narrative portrays certain key characters meeting their death, illustrating the ultimate state of thingness in human bodies. Dickens, who had an interest in the popular entertainment industry of 19th-century British society, encapsulates the contemporary culture where object-like humans and human-like objects were both presented as spectacles, including freak shows and wax figure exhibitions. Characters such as Nell Trent and Quilp exhibit characteristics resembling wax figures or automata, attracting the gaze of both other characters and the readers. Scenes featuring various characters evoke associations with circuses or freak shows, reflecting a culture where the human body is consumed as a spectacle. More importantly, in the essay “Some Recollection of Mortality,” Dickens reminisces about his frequent visits to the Paris Morgue, depicting the bewilderment induced among spectators seeking entertainment as they gazed upon the corpses that resembled wax figures. The imagery of these corpses helps us to better understand the portrayal of the dead bodies of Nell and Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. Resisting the gaze of the spectators that commodifies them, the corpses of these two individuals suggest, as ‘imperfect replicas,’ the irreplicability, uniqueness, and individuality of their characters. The portrayal of Nell and Quilp’s bodies in death, attempting to ‘resemble’ their living counterparts just like wax effigies, paradoxically implies the presence of individuality and uniqueness of each character, now absent due to death.

Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop, human curiosities, corpse, individuality, 찰스 디킨스, 『오래된 진귀품 가게』, 인간 진귀품, 시체, 개별성

성창규 Chang-gyu Seong

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 753-777, 2023

This paper delves into the analysis of Ted Hughes’s botanical poems, primarily drawn from Flowers and Insects, employing the frameworks of thermodynamics and entropy. Hughes incorporates references to thermal movement and equilibrium in poems such as “Narcissi,” interweaving the natural world and human civilization at their roots. In “Daffodils,” a reflective piece on Sylvia Plath, the speaker adopts a nomadic perspective and engages with entropy, elevating the daffodil to the status of a golden archangel presiding over primal birth and death. Likewise, in “Sunstruck Foxglove,” the grass is explored with medicinal and poisonous roots, and Hughes associates the plant with femininity and procreation. The poems such as “Thistles,” and “Brambles” illuminate the historical aspects of human conflict. In “Big Poppy,” allusions to war examine our relationship with animals, depicting them as both masculine figures in their drug-like qualities and femme fatale figures. Drawing parallels to the mythological character Cyclops, “Cyclamens in a Bowl” assigns femininity to the plant while capturing the ecological antagonism between its stem, leaf, and flower as an entropic ecosystem. In contrast to “The Thought-Fox,” which exemplifies fauna and initiation, “To Paint a Water Lily” explores flora and writing, evoking the luminosity of water lilies and the harmony between light and earth, or yin and yang. These botanical ideas, relationships with animals, and attempts at balance in the natural world are central themes in “A Green Mother.” Beyond Hughes’s unique observations of the flora and fauna, these botanical poems can be interpreted as posthumanist endeavors to transcend anthropocentric perspectives.

Ted Hughes, botanical poems, thermodynamics, entropy, Flowers and Insects, 테드 휴즈, 식물시, 열역학, 엔트로피, 『꽃과 곤충』

유필진 Pilljin Yoo

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 779-812, 2023

This article explores Laurence Sterne’s novel Tristram Shandy, examining its two distinct recursive structures: one based on tracing the roots of events and characters within the narrative and the other concerning its relationship with the literary criticism of phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches. Tristram Shandy, published from 1759 to 1767, is significant in studying the novel genre. Sterne’s novelistic brilliance in Tristram Shandy is attributed to his extensive incorporation of philosophical ideas ranging from Plato to John Locke and Michel de Montaigne in early modern times. First, this article focuses on Sterne’s use of these philosophies to craft his novel and its cyclical narrative, which revolves around the theme of pregnancy, a key motif in Socrates’ dialogue in Theaetetus. Second, this article examines how studies of Tristram Shandy, which adopt phenomenological hermeneutics as their methodology, can form a recursive structure with Sterne’s work. Goethe, an avid reader of Sterne, plays a significant role in bridging these two parts. According to W. R. R. Pinger, Sterne’s distinctive sentimentalism and his concept of ‘hobby horse’ as a gateway to enter the Other’s mind might have influenced Goethe’s philosophy and his scientific study. Further evidence is that researchers have also suggested that Goethe’s ideas may have affected Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology and his critique of the mathematical reduction of the world. This journey of tracing roots culminates in circularity, leading both Tristram Shandy and its criticism, grounded in phenomenological hermeneutics, toward a paradoxical relationship akin to that of the chicken and the egg.

Tristram Shandy, Theaetetus, Goethe, phenomenology, experiencing Other, 『트리스트람 섄디』, 『테아이테토스』, 괴테, 현상학, 타자 경험

육성희 Sung Hee Yook

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 813-834, 2023

This paper delves into the portrayal of racial injustice in Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay, examining how American society remembers its racial Other, particularly through the prism of mourning and justice. Inspired by the killing of Latasha Harlins, a pivotal event of the LA riots in 1992, the novel explores the enduring impact of this tragedy on the surviving family members in 2019. The narrative weaves the past events of Ava Matthews, a fictional representation of Latasha Harlins, with the present-day death of Alfonso Curiel. It reveals a stark contrast in the treatment of their untimely deaths by the society―some deaths are considered worthy of mourning, while others are overlooked. This study explores the question of whose deaths American society considers worthy of mourning, focusing on the victim narratives of Ava and Alfonso. The exploration of their unmourned deaths is examined in relation to their precarious lives as Black individuals experiencing life as denizens deprived of the civil rights that all people should enjoy equally. Drawing on the mourning theories of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida, the paper investigates the societal context influencing the decision to mourn or disregard the deaths of the racialized Other. Ava and Alfonso serve as poignant examples of how racial injustices persist even in death. This paper contends that the failure to mourn the death of the racial Other signifies a broader failure to acknowledge and accept the Other as they are―an act of discrimination that perpetuates the Other as eternally marginalized.

LA Riots, mourning, justice, precarity, racial Other, LA 폭동, 애도, 정의, 취약성, 인종적 타자

윤재원 Jaewon Yoon

DOI: Vol.69(No.4) 835-864, 2023

Ian McEwan’s The Child in Time (1987), published in the midst of the political, economic, and socio-cultural ascendancy of British neoliberalism in the 1980s, is often hailed as his most socially critical work. Drawing on discussions by Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall, and Raymond Williams and understanding ‘hegemony’ as a dynamic ‘process’ that is recreated, defended, challenged, and modified, this paper focuses on the novel’s distinctive form of counter-hegemonic struggle that inflects Thatcherite neoliberal hegemony. Anchored in the theme of the ‘absence of child’, The Child in Time employs categories of humanity, temporality, and (non-)hierarchy to frame the neoliberal hegemonic project as a ‘crisis’, imperiling human existence by shaping the structure of feeling marked by misery and the experience-system of child disappearance and death. The novel then introduces alternative discourses under the same categories, challenging the legitimacy of the hegemonic and asserting the necessity of the counter-hegemonic for social renewal and the continuity of human existence. For this analysis, this paper examines the ways in which McEwan uses epigraphs as concise summaries of the neoliberal hegemony particularly in relation to the field child care and education, and contrasts them with the counter-hegemonic narrative that is woven into the story. Last but not least, this paper emphasizes that the novel’s anti-hegemonic struggle becomes diluted at its conclusion with the birth of a new child, who is presented as a devalued ‘biological reality.’ This critical examination reveals the ideological limitations and essentialization of biological materiality within the novel, while acknowledging its commitment to counter-hegemonic resistance.

childness, child disappearance, counter-hegemony, Thatcherism, temporality, 아동성, 아동실종, 대항 헤게모니, 그람시, 대처리즘, 시간성