The Modern Significance of Taekwondo as Sport and Martial Art: Overcoming Cultural and Historical Limitations in Traditional Thinking

( Steven D. Capener ) 한국사상문화학회 2005 韓國思想과 文化 Vol.30 No.-

1930S KOREAN LITERARY MODERNISM : ANTI-MORALITY AND EROTICISM IN THE WORK OF YI HYOSŎK

STEVEN D. CAPENER 계명대학교 한국학연구원 2013 Acta Koreana Vol.16 No.2

Problems in the Identity and Philosophy of T`aegwŏndo and Their Historical Causes

Steven D. Capener The Academy of Korean Studies 1995 Korea Journal Vol.35 No.4

스포츠의 도

Steven D. Capener 한국체육철학회 2015 움직임의철학 : 한국체육철학회지 Vol.23 No.2

It has generally been the tradition in the study of human movement to attempt to utilize some kind of ‘technique” to quantify and explain the sport experience. Such empirical methods, of course, do reveal certain truths but there is a limit to how useful they are in helping the sport practitioner perceive what they do as philosophic movement. A more direct and intuitive approach is called. This paper proposes that in contrast to this technical approach of postulating knowledge about one’s sport movement, an intuitive approach based on an understanding and application of the principles of the Tao can bring to the practitioner a new and expanded awareness of their relationship to both their opponent (be it another person, as obstacle, or even themselves) and nature as a whole. I use examples taken mostly from martial sport to elucidate the usefulness of approaching one’s performance from the perspective of the Tao, in particular, the idea of “appropriating chaos” taken from the name for free sparring in judo. Approaching the sport experience in this way brings new knowledge, and such knowledgeable movement can provide a new epistemological approach to life. One who is physically educated through this epistemology finds in the sport experience more than merely the acquisition of skill in order to produce results. They find a new awareness of their relationship with nature and the possibility of self-transcendence. 인간의 운동에 관한 연구는 스포츠 체험을 수량화하고 설명하기 위해 특정 “기술”을 실용화하려는 노력이 전통적인 방식이었다. 물론 그러한 경험적 방식을 통해서도 진실을 도출해 낼 수는 있겠지만 특정 스포츠 종목의 훈련생이 자신의 운동을 철학적인 관점에서 인지하도록 돕는 데 얼마나 유용한가 생각해 보면 한계가 있다. 보다 직접적이고 직관적인 접근이 필요하다. 본 논문은 스포츠 행위 자체에 관한 지식을 상정하는 기존의 기술적 접근방식과는 달리, 도(道) 사상의 이해와 응용을 바탕으로 한 직관적인 접근방식을 택했다. 훈련생들은 이러한 접근방식을 통해 자신의 상대(그 상대가 다른 선수이건, 장애물이건, 아니면 그들 자신이건)는 물론이고, 전체로서의 자연과 자신의 관계를 새롭고 폭넓게 이해할 수 있을 것이다. 도(道)의 관점에서 접근하는 방식의 유용성을 설명하기 위해 대부분의 사례를 무술 종목에서 가져왔고, 특히 상대의 혼란에서 나의 질서를 구한다는 의미의 “난취(亂取)” 개념은 유도의 자유대련 명칭에서 차용했다. 개인의 스포츠 체험을 이러한 각도에서 접근함으로써 새로운 지식을 얻을 수 있는 것은 물론이고, 지적인 운동을 통해 삶에 대한 인식론적 접근도 가능할 것이다. 이러한 인식을 바탕으로 육체적 훈련을 받는 사람들은 그들의 스포츠 체험이 단지 결과를 도출하기 위한 기술 습득 이상의 의미가 있음을 깨닫게 된다. 나아가서, 자연과의 관계와 자아초월의 가능성을 새롭게 자각한다.

Paradise Found: Recovery and Redemption in Yi Hyoseok’s Later Literature

( Steven D. Capener ) 서울대학교 규장각한국학연구원 2009 Seoul journal of Korean studies Vol.22 No.1

Yi Hyoseok is known almost exclusively for his short story When the Buckwheat Blooms (1936). However, Yi was one of the most prolific writes of the colonial period with a collected works that runs to eight volumes and includes over 150 short stories and two full-length novels of over 300 pages. Yi’s sensibility as a writer changed significantly as the colonial experience deepened. His early engage topics gave way to one’s dealing with nature and sex. However, in his two full-length novels, Pollen (1939) and Endless Blue Sky (1941), Yi makes use of a literary trope that had been developing in his work since before he wrote Buckwheat: the western archetype of the lost paradise. This paper attempts to show how this archetype operated in Yi’s literature and what its use explains about Yi’s literary sensibility.

The Formation of Korean-ness and the Advent of the Split-Consciousness: Embracing Multiple Realities in Yeom Sangseop’s Mansejeon

( Steven D. Capener ) 한국영어영문학회 2018 영어 영문학 Vol.64 No.3

It is ironic but not coincidental that the loss of Korean sovereignty to Japan roughly paralleled the formation of the idea of Korean ethnic identity. The coalescence of the content of this heretofore amorphous notion of a “pure” and transcendental (in the class sense) ethnic essence was, again ironically, the result both of ideologies taken from (or given by) Japan and resistance to Japanese encroachment. What resulted was the birth of a hybrid (sub) consciousness that was able to accommodate disparate, or even contradictory, realities simultaneously without any sense of contradiction (Christian and shaman for example). If, as Kim Chul has asserted, the colonial period was the most impactful in forming today’s Korean society and “giving birth” to today’s Korean, it becomes easy to imagine how this formation process included elements of Japanese and western culture. This meant that there was going to be an inevitable cognitive dissonance when these influences collided with the imperatives of ethnic nationalism which became the touchstone for a common Korean identity (North and South). This paper attempts to show how this split-consciousness was manifested in Yeom Sang seop’s Manse jeon with the aim of identifying how it affects discourses related to nationalism and identity.

Disciplinary Sport Philosophy : 체육의 도

Steven D . Capener 한국체육학회 1996 국제스포츠과학 학술대회 Vol.1996 No.1

INTENTIONALLY MISTRANSLATING HALLYU : THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL DISSEMINATION OF KOREAN CULTURE

Steven D. Capener 한국외국어대학교 통번역연구소 2018 한국외국어대학교 통번역연구소 학술대회 Vol.2018 No.10

In spite of the increase in Korean language acquisition around the globe, the dissemination of Korean culture internationally is still almost entirely dependent on translation. It is, therefore, interesting to examine translation practices to see what they can tell us about how Korean translators intend Korean culture to be perceived by the target audience. North Korean studies scholar Bryan Meyers has identified an internal track and an external track in the dissemination of North Korean propaganda: one for North Koreans and the other for everyone else. These two tracks have different objectives and contain radically different messages. I postulate that a similar mechanism can be identified in the translation of some Hallyu content. In this article I will use a comparative analysis of the English translation of Psy’s recent release Gentleman to elucidate the different aesthetic and cultural messages being conveyed to the internal (Korean) and external (international) audiences respectively. From this, it should be possible to make some assumptions as to the type of image that the producers and manipulators (including translators) of such content are attempting to present to the non-Korean-speaking consumer. In addition, the discussion will include the Korean government’s increasing influence in the production and dissemination of Psy”s (in particular but not limited to) work in an attempt to determine if translation is being used to intentionally misrepresent cultural images and messages.

언어보다 그림을 번역하기

Steven D. Capener 한국외국어대학교 통번역연구소 2018 한국외국어대학교 통번역연구소 학술대회 Vol.2018 No.06

Nihilism and Salvation in the Literatures of Kim Sung Ok and Ernest Hemingway

( Steven D. Capener ) 미국소설학회(구 한국호손학회) 2012 미국소설 Vol.19 No.1

The literary critic Kim Hyeon has postulated that in all of the nihilism that characterized Korean literature (what he termed "undifferentiated nihilism") after the war and up until the late 1960s, only a couple of author`s works offered the possibility of what he called "salvation." Kim Sung Ok was one of these authors. Kim Hyeon goes on to characterize the nihilism found in the Korean literature of the period as lacking the potential to provide opportunities for individual growth and lamented the fact that such nihilism was characteristic of Korean literature and was different from the nihilism of Western literature. He did not expound on the nature of such Western nihilism, but it seems evident that he was referring to the affirmative nihilism proposed by Nietzsche. In fact, nihilism was a key element of much of the literature of the twentieth century and was an important element of modernism. One Western writer frequently associated with the idea of nihilism is Ernest Hemingway. In spite of Kim Hyeon`s assertions as to the lack of differentiation of Korean literary nihilism, some Korean writers were by the 1950s and 60s participating in this worldwide idiom, and in fact, Kim Sung Ok produced at least one story that has a very Hemingway-esque quality to it that begs a comparison of the two stories. This paper attempts two things: one is to clarify the natures of these contrasting forms of nihilism and, the second is, through a comparative reading of Kim Sung Ok`s Seoul, Winter 1964 and Hemingway`s short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, to discuss how nihilism operates in the two stories in the context of the notion of the possibility of "salvation."