• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.25
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• pp.87-106
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• 2011

This article studies that Korean literature has been renewed to World literature-oriented in the history of Modern Korean literary criticism from early modern period to present for reflecting the slogan, "globalization of Korean Literature" as well as contextualizing the necessity, "new relationship between Korean literature and World literature". Some writers, such as Lee Gwangsoo a pioneer of Modern Korean literature and the group for foreign literature[haioei-munhak-pa] introducing World literature to Korea and Lim hwa a prominent critic of proletarian literary theory under Japanese Colonial period, have understood European literature as World literature Korean literature had to reach. Inevitably the hierarchical relation between Korean literature and European literature as World literature had been interiorized to them. Meanwhile Jo Dong-il and Paik Nak-chung who have been representative researchers of Korean literature had tried to broken down the hierarchical relation between Korean literature and European literature interiorized to Korean writers until the 1980s, with Korean literature could be accomplished to World literature meaning. Since the late 1990s Park Sung-chang and Park Sang-jin who are leading researchers of comparative literature in Korea these days, have emphasized the methodology of new comparative literature for 'universality of literature' between Korean literature and World literature, which have been the renewal way of Korean literature in today's age of globalization.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.617-628
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• 2018

The aim of this essay is to discuss the relationship between Korean literature and Korean intellectual scenes. Since its first introduction to the local context, literature as a genre has served as a field in which colonial and post-colonial intellectuals have attempted to win the accreditation of Western enlightenment. Literature has been regarded as a crucial instrument of liberal arts and education in Korea. Literature has functioned as a social movement in Korea since its inception. During the colonial period, radical intellectuals and literary writers published essays and articles in literary journals. This status as a social movement is still a distinctive characteristic of Korean literature. From the outset, Korean literature has functioned as an enlightenment project for cultural development. As such, Korean literature retains a political meaning of "literariness," which reshuffles the hierarchy of the sensible and creates novelty against given aesthetic regimes. As a result, in the process these regimes are thereby de-purified of their status as purely aesthetic movements; their perspectives thereby come into contact with other discourses and practices outside the art world. This essay argues that as a genre, Korean literature always functions as "world literature" in Korean intellectual scenes.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.107-133
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• 2017

This study compares the history of modern Korean literature written in China with the history of South Korean literature, the history of North Korean literature and the history of national literature, explores aspects of narrative and therefore examines transcultural practice presented in such texts. There have hitherto been approximately 25 works on the history of Korean literature written in China, and 16 of 25 works are on the history of modern Korean literature. Regarding their purpose, the number of pedagogical works outstandingly exceeds the number of research works. In terms of perspective and contents, it can be divided into three categories; one that only embraces the history of South Korean literature, another embracing the history of North Korean literature only and the other embracing the history of South Korean and North Korean literature. This study has selected representative texts from each category and compared recognition and narrative aspects to that of the history of South Korean literature, the history of North Korean literature and the history of Chinese literature. It further examines loci of definitions' transfer and formation as well. As a result, this study reveals valuable understanding of recognition and narration of the history of Korean literature. First, this study offers an introspective attitude, as the history of modern Korean literature accentuates influence of only Western literature, overlooking influence of Chinese literature. Second, this study proposes a new narrative perspective on the history of Unified Korean literature through independent and objective identification of the history of North Korean literature. Last, it emphasizes popularization of literature - aside from pure literary-centrism - and expands possibilities of embracing distinct works relevant to multimedia.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.1-30
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to review two books on the history of Korean literature written in Japanese, taking special interest in ancient Korean literature, examining transcultural patterns between the history of North and South Korean literature and that of Japanese literature, and thereby identifying perceptions and description patterns of the history of Korean literature from the perspective of comparative literature. This study analyzes two books with the same title The History of Joseon Literature written in Japanese by Kim Dongwook and Byeon Jaesoo. The two books are not translations of Korean books but were written in Japanese for Japanese and ethnic Korean readers in Japan. The History of Joseon Literature (1974) by Kim Dongwook mainly compares Joseon literature with Japanese literature. The History of Joseon Literature (1985) by Byeon Jaesoo, an ethnic North Korean in Japan, was written from socialistic perspectives. The two books have different standards for evaluating value of the history of Joseon literature and different perceptions about it. Due to the division between North and South Korea, the history of literature is unfolding in different ways in the two Koreas, and the two books reflect such differences. However, they have several common features. For example, they highly regard the value of literature written in Chinese characters and originality of hangga (a folk song of Silla), Hangeul (the Korean alphabet), and pansori (a form of Korean folk music in which a singer accompanied by a supportive drummer sings and chants an epic story). In addition, they both demonstrated that literature written in Hangeul and that written in Chinese characters interacted with each other as the same Korean literature. When the two books were written, the history of Korean literature had been considered a subunit of the history of East Asian or Chinese literature. However, as this study found, Kim and Byeon wrote the two books from a perspective of departing from this view based on nationalism, re-establishing the value of Korean literature, promoting Japanese people's understanding of the high quality of Korean literature, and imbuing ethnic Koreans in Japan with nationalistic pride.

• Journal of Korean Classical Literature and Education
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• no.16
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• pp.29-63
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• 2008

The purpose of the study is to describe the phenomena of reading classical Korean literature in middle school classrooms. This is one of a series of fundamental works to seek a desirable direction for classical Korean literature education. The results of the study are as follows. First, it was investigated which classical Korean literature middle school students read. As a result, it was found that the students read the works given mostly in their Korean language textbooks. A modern language is used for classical Korean literature in middle school textbooks. The textbooks have the largest number of tales with four pieces, followed by novels, essays, and sijos, Korean verses. Secondly, it was investigated how middle school students read classical Korean literature. It was found that they read it in class mainly through one-way lecturing by teachers. As a result of conducting a questionnaire survey of students and teachers, it was found that the lessons in classical Korean literature did not fulfill the students' expectations. Thirdly, my own real teaching cases were arranged to be presented, in connection with the matter why students should read classical Korean literature. This matter is embodied with a teacher's short verbal explanation focusing on motivation concerning the object of study.

• Journal of Korean Library and Information Science Society
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.285-304
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• 2022

This study investigated Korean diaspora literature with the bilingual feature, which was published in a local language other than Korean, focusing on literature classification status in domestic library's materials. As a result of the investigation, domestic universities and public libraries that owned the diaspora literature materials were classifying the original work by the languages or focusing on the author's work. Nowadays, the Literature classification codes of KDC have on the language of the original work but no code on the author. Nevertheless, domestic libraries were classifying diaspora literature works by the author, not by the language of the original work, so that the same author's works were gathered in one place. This study proposes an option to classify "Korean national literature" that covers Korean diaspora literature and Korean literature into 810 of KDC to resolve the confusion in the classification of Korean diaspora literature. However, this option is a trial proposal for libraries with special needs for Korean diaspora literature classification, and further investigation and research will be necessary to apply this option.

• 지역과문화
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.57-84
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• 2020

The Literature Museum Network aims to realize the legislative purpose of the Literature Promotion Act and achieve balanced development of local literature centers across the country. In the Literature Museum Network, the literature museum network support center will be established by region to take charge of cooperation projects between local literature centers, which will be the culmination of the National Literature Museum of Korea. It is intended to test-run various projects planned by the Munhakwan Network Support Center to create derivative contents, or to establish a regional hub literature center in charge of education and other affairs of the literature museum's workforce. If the existing metropolitan administrative districts are used to form zones, the entire country can be organized into four zones. They include the Seoul-Gyeonggi Literature Museum Network (23 local literature centers), the Gangwon Chungcheong Literature Museum Network (32 local literature centers), the Yeongnam Literature Museum Network (30 local literature centers), and the Honam Jeju Literature Museum Network (22 local literature centers). One literature museum network support center will be established for each region and one local literature center will be selected as the hub literature center. The Literature Hall Network Support Center is in charge of collecting and managing literary materials, developing contents and programs, promoting and foreign cooperation, etc. The hub literature museum will be in charge of pilot operation of content and programs, training and education of experts in the literature museum, and running joint storage facilities. This structural system and efficient operation of the literature museum network will ultimately provide an opportunity for the formation of cultural governance in which the power and public nature of the establishment of literary promotion infrastructure are secured.

• Journal of the Korean BIBLIA Society for library and Information Science
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.267-290
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• 2015

Diverse researches such as referring to classical literature for liberal arts courses, transformation of classical literature into cultural content and understanding classical literature through digital media have been engaged in an effort to spread the diachronic value of classical literature to the public in general, which should be based on clear understanding of authorship of classical literature. Thus this study aims to design ontology in order to establish knowledge structure of classical literature. For this purpose, the BIBFRAME model and OWL have been utilized while a variety of classical literature and related studies have been analyzed. This led to 19 classes of Work, Instance, Authority, and Annotation, instance, each of which has been provided with property and indexing examples. The classical literature ontology designed through this study is expected to serve as the foundation for development of a classical literature system in future.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.31-66
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• 2017

This study examines ways of recognizing and aspects of describing Korean modern literature revealed by each literary history from the viewpoint of 'transculturation', focusing on Lim Jeon-Hye's "History of Korean Literature in Japan until 1945", Shirakawa Yutaka's "Footsteps of Korean Modern Literature", and Saegusa Toshikatsu's "Taste of Korean Literature" from the history of Korean literature written in Japan. First, Lim Jeon-Hye periodically examines Korean literature written in Japan, focusing on literary activities of Korean students in Japan and the proletarian literature movement, and addresses points of active cultural negotiation, mutual understanding and political solidarity between Korea and Japan. Shirakawa Yutaka focuses on the concurrency and connection of Korea, China, and Japan in the process of modern literary formation, covering Japanese language literature and pro-Japanese literature with great care, and describes the middle-layer position as a mediating researcher in the conflicting boundaries between Korea and Japan. Saegusa Toshikatsu provides interesting transcultural momentum in exploring internal logic and denotation of Korean literature via comparative literature review encompassing East Asia, implementation of literary forms and themes connecting tradition and modernity, and an out-of-boundary point of view to overlook 'pro-Japanese literature', etc. Transcultural aspects in this literary history to examine are as follow. First, the history of Korean modern literature based on 'national literature history' is catabolized in the magnetic field of the 'colonial experience' and 'national nationalism' and considered in multifaceted context. Second, they provide the possibility of three-dimensional and micro-narrative description of literature that complement the narrative aspect of existing Korean literature history. Third, they provide an opportunity to expand and open the description of literature history through acceptance of comparative literary perspectives encompassing East Asia. Fourth, through discovery of Korean-Japanese literature and Japanese language literature, they contribute to broadening the history of Korean modern literature and enriching foundations.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.48
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• pp.67-106
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• 2017

This study focuses on two specific history of Korean literature in Chinese: the outline of The History of Joseon Literature (2010) by Li Yan and The History of Joseon Literature (1988, 2008) by Wei Xu-sheng; it was conducted to compare narrative viewpoints to the history of South and North Korean literature and therefore identify distinguishable characteristics. As a result, the following was concluded. First, The History of Korean Literature by Cho Dong-il and The History of Korean Literature in North Korea (15 volumes) include thorough discussions on division of historical eras, concept of genres as well as individual literary works and applied such discussions on writing literary history. However, Wei Xu-sheng and Li Yan's The History of Korean Literature did not illuminate theoretical discussion of South and North Korea. Li Yan's outline of The History of Joseon Literature was published in 2010 and the first edition of Wei Xu-sheng's The History of Joseon Literature was published in 1986 and later was published as revised editions in 2000 and 2008. Regarding published dates, it is a matter of course to reference Cho Dong-il's The History of Korean Literature, published in the 1980s, or The History of Korean Literature in North Korea (15 volumes), published in the 1990s; nevertheless, neither Wei Xu-sheng nor Li Yan used those texts in their works. Their works were heavily influenced by the narrative tradition of the history of national literature and therefore, entailed unsophisticated discussion on the division of historical eras or the concept of genres. Second, those two texts also emphasized external factors such as politics, society, economy and culture and explicitly mention these factors in historical overview of each chapter. Such an approach is commonly used in narratives of literary history under socialist regimes, including The History of Korean Literature in North Korea (15 volumes). Accordingly, evaluations based on 'political standards' - stress of people, nationality, practicality and so forth - in main texts are particularly accentuated, akin to narratives of literary history under socialist regimes. Finally, since those two Korean literature history works are written by Chinese scholars, they focus on correlation between Chinese literature history and Korean literature history. However, several genre-related terminologies such as Xiaopin (a kind of essay), Yuefu (a kind of popular song/poem), Yuyan (fable), Shuochang (telling of popular stories with the interspersal songs), Shizhuan (biography or/and memoirs in history) were adopted directly from Chinese literature. In analyzing Korean literature using terminologies introduced from Chinese literature, differences between original and alternative definitions were not examined in detail. While some terminologies and concepts were adopted directly without further consideration as to state of the two nations, it is also interesting to note that dichotomy, mainly used in Korean literature history, was used to discuss the genre of Cheonki (romance tale), relevant to Suyichon and Keumosinhua, rather than follow traditions of Chinese literature history.