트랜스내셔널한 역사에 응답하는 한국의 문학과 정치－『냉전시대 한국의 문학과 영화』 비판에 대한 비판－

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to reveal correctly the meaning of the studies of Korean literature by American scholars as recently introduced. In addition, in the present context, this thesis contains the intent of re-criticizing the criticism by Choe Hyon-Hui on Literature and Film in Cold War South Korea by Theodore Hughes. In the process of examining the problems with the criticism by Choe Hyon-Hui, we can observe that studies by American scholars such as Theodore Hughes, Lee Jin-Kyung, and others provide fresh impetus with regard to existing study of Korean literature. The key criticism by Choe Hyon-Hui is that the book by Hughes defined literary works as where ideologies, which compose the historical contexts, are competing instead of viewing them as the realization of textuality. This is the theoretical objectivism related to how the literature works are treated, i.e., where the historical multi-layer can be observed objectively. In addition, it is political nihilism with regard to the aspect how the literary texts participate in the process of real politics in history is excluded. This thesis seeks to explain that the two aspects criticized by Choe Hyon-Hui rather make us understand the role of literature as yet unseen. First, the criticism that the literary works revert to where the ideologies are competing is limited mainly to the study assessing literary limits. Hughes never viewed the literary texts as historical ideology. The criticism of ethno- nationalism by Hughes has the purpose of identifying the ideological equivalents corresponding to the limit of the literary texts. For example, the textual limit in the novel by Nam Jung-Hyun refers to works pertaining to the ideology of muscular ethno-nationalism, which we have not viewed carefully. Political nihilism is refuted by the works of other authors, whose works Choe Hyon-Hui had not viewed sufficiently. For example, the works by Son Chang-Sup and Choe In-Hun are novels which responded to reality politically through textuality. The response of the works by the two authors to the historical reality used a secret micro-political method. That is, they responded to the historical reality of the times microscopically, moving away from ideology by placing the ethnic group or nation in multi-layer interstices. The literary methods used by them were ‘look back’, ambivalence, and ‘placing in the interstice’, among others. The works by the two authors perform the role of micro-politics through a secret response which has not been examined thus far. These works reveal to us that only micro-politics can respond to a macroscopic level of history through the texts.