• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.17 no.8
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• pp.130-143
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• 2017

This study examines the theoretical framework of "B" local union, which conducts "class-oriented" labor movements in contemporary Japan. "Class-oriented" labor movements are active, while they have been residual on the margins of Japanese society and the country's labor movement situation. This research examines a theoretical framework for "class-oriented" labor movements and investigates Williams' "structure of feeling." First, the "structure of feeling" concept is examined. Second, the study compares several theories on the working class of Marxism and alternative subjects of "linguistic turn." Third, this study redefines the "structure of feeling" in terms of the case of "B" local union. The results show that "collective workers-individualize workers" and "workers-non-workers" of "B" local union establish their own labor movements on the material or immaterial space and consider their "structure of feeling" as the "negotiation and contradiction on the class-orientation." Consequently, this study offers a model of their "structure of feeling."

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.21
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• pp.189-211
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• 2010

The purpose of this paper is to 1)examine the current state of cultural studies in Korea with a focus on recent discourses about its 'crisis' and 2)attempt to find some ways out of these dilemmas in drama/theatre/performance studies. As Raymond Williams redefined 'culture' as 'a whole way of life,' performance studies has expanded the boundary of 'performance' from traditional performing arts onto almost everything that can be studied and analyzed 'as' performance. Performance is not only the final product on display but a whole process that includes training, workshop, and rehearsal of culture. According to Richard Schechner, workshop and rehearsal are the most critical and creative 'liminal' phases that allow traditional knowledge and alternative challenges to coexist in conflict and intentionally delay the final decision by putting itself in a perpetual process. From this view, this essay attempts to find an-no matter how limited and temporary-answer to or a possible exit from political and theoretical aporias of cultural studies.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.58 no.5
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• pp.903-941
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• 2012

This essay examines Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism focusing on the concepts of 'culture,' 'empire,' and 'nation'. The approach is critical, theoretical, and historical rather than explicatory. Consequently, the range of the essay is not limited to Said's own explanation and argument about Western imperialism and its culture presented in the book. In doing this, this essay finally purposes to be a discursive resistance to the current global empire, the United States, via a critical reading of Said's work. Said's notion of culture is set upon to disclose the function of culture as an apparatus of ideological consent of the dominated to the dominant. When applied to imperial practice, Western culture functions to subject the colonized to the colonizer. Said's geographical approach to imperialism complements the historical understanding of imperialism. Imperialism is not only the practice of Western-centered historicism but also the spatially mutual interaction between the West and the rest of the world. Along with European imperialism, Said poses the current global empire of the United States as his main target of criticism. Said's problem is that he takes the United States as a nation-state. When examined, the United States is not a nation-state, but today's empire. The empire in the appearance of the nation-state United States does not work for the interest of the American nation, that is, the American people. The empire is the transnational and postnational political and economic institution that works for the interest of global capital. In order to resist the current global empire, this essay suggests that the building or restoration of nation-states with its basic principle of people's sovereignty is in need.