연기적 주권을 향하여: 미국 인디언 문학 비평에서 민족주의와 세계시민주의 논쟁

강용기 ( Yong-ki Kang ) 한국영미문화학회 2017 영미문화 Vol.17 No.4

The recent American Indian literary scholarship has enacted heated debates on the issue of nationalism vs. cosmopolitanism. Foregrounding post-modernist’s double discourses and allegedly shared humanism, cosmopolitan literary critics assert that American Indian nationalists give way to political separatism and cultural binarism as they pursue to seek their literary sources and methodology from the indigenous cultural values and perspectives. On the other hand, the nationalist critics including Jace Weaver, Craig S. Womack and Robert Warrior want to enliven the native world-view and literary methodology which they claim have been ignored, debased, discounted, and marginalized by Euro-American cultural voices. The native nationalists criticize that the cosmopolitan critics desire to keep status quo by reminding our own contemporary cultural hybridity or having recourse to the post-modern bifurcated logic of yes and no. In fact, the nationalist critics do not deserve the cosmopolitans’ charge of politico-cultural separatism and binarism. The nationalists willingly recognize the validity of those literary works that go along with multicultural movements in the United States as much as those seeking the native tribal perspectives. They only try to reinvigorate the marginalized sovereignty of the indigenous people. Then, the nationalist critics goes toward the Buddhist’s concept of co-arising sovereignty in that they are resilient to cultural transformation while keeping the non-essential sovereignty that is formed with five aggregates. American Indian nationalism does not pursue essentialist nationhood but co-arising sovereignty.

풍요로운 쌍방향 해체

강용기(Kang, Yong-Ki) 문학과환경학회 2016 문학과 환경 Vol.15 No.2

올더스 헉슬리의『멋진 신세계』는 1932년에 발표된 이래로 문학 비평가들은 물론이려니와 수없이 많은 지식인과 과학자들 혹은 미래학자들의 비상한 관심을 야기하였다. 이 소설에 대한 그들의 반응은 주로 과학발전의 위험성을 경고하는 데에 초점이 맞추어졌다. 그러나 이 소설은 야만인 존이 표상하는 원시주의를 폄하함으로써 과학기술의 유용성에 대한 양비론적 입장을 취한다. 즉, 무스타파가 지향하는 공동체 의식, 단일성, 사회적 안정성 그리고 무엇보다도 사회 구성원 전체의 행복 등의 가치와 존과 헬름홀츠, 버나드가 옹호하는 가치, 예컨대, 자유, 인간의 존엄성, 순결, 로맨스 혹은 전통적인 가족관 등의 가치관은 상호 시험하고 시험당한다. 그러한 공리주의적 가치와 원시주의적 가치의 쌍방향 해체는 과학기술에 관한 논쟁은 물론 문명과 자연 사이의 갈등과 화해와 같은 보다 큰 주제에 관한 다양한 담론을 야기한다. 많은 비평가들이 언급하듯이, 작가는 이 소설에서 대안적 삶의 방식을 제시하고 있지 않지만, 오히려 그러한 한계성 때문에 이 소설은 과학과 문명의 문제뿐만 아니라 심지어 보편주의적인 인생관에 이르기까지 매우 다양하고 풍요로운 논쟁과 담론을 생산하는 효과를 자아낸다. 요컨대, 이 소설에서 헉슬리의 해체적 서사는 과학기술의 위험성을 계고하면서 동시에 우리의 인간주의적인 가치를 되돌아보게 한다. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has been concerned by an innumerable number of intellectuals, scientists, technologists and futurists as well as literary critics since it was released in 1932. Most of the comments and criticism on the novel are driven to warn danger in scientific development. The novel takes a two-way critical position, however, as its plot and characterization also undermines primitivism represented by the savage John. Thus, scientific progress-based utilitarian values of Mustapha such as communal spirit, homogeneity, social stability and above all, general happiness contest humanistic virtues like freedom, human dignity, chastity, romance and traditional family-system, which are advocated by John, Helmholtz and Bernard. And vice versa. The two-way deconstruction of utilitarianism and primitivism stimulates a variety of discourses involving a broader subject, the matter of conflict and reconciliation between civilization and natural lifeway. Even if this novel does not suggest a possibility of alternative life-style, which many critics point out as its limit, rather, its limitation itself works to generate richer discourses concerning the universalist view of life as well as the problem of science and civilization. After all, the deconstructive narrative of Huxley demands readers to be alert to the danger of science & technology and go over our humanistic value from a different angle as well.

르귄의 『세상을 가리키는 말은 숲이다』에서 "꿈"의 은유와 그 정치학

강용기 ( Yong Ki Kang ) 21세기영어영문학회 2015 영어영문학21 Vol.28 No.1

This science fiction sets its time to several centuries in the future. Terrans establishes a logging colony and military base on Athshe, a forest-covered planet. The plot weaves round conflict and violence that occur between Terrans and native Athsheans. In the final confrontation, the natives prevails and the Terran colonists retreat to Earth. WWF invites a cultural interpretation beyond its superficial story line. The Athshean concept of ‘dream-time`` metaphorizes yin, darkness or sense which counters the forces of ‘world-time,`` yang, light or reason. The Athshean culture roots in the interdependent relationship of the two forces while the West has historically privileged the latter forces. Because the western culture tends to assign goodness to light or reason, it justifies its oppression and exploitation of marginalized people and their culture. That is why colonialists like Davidson log the Athshean woods, exploit the natives`` labor, and reveal sexist abuse without any stricken-conscience. In short, Le Guin criticizes cultural paranoia rooted in the westerners`` mind and warns its mass-destructive practice in terms of speciesism, racism and sexism. In other words, she advocates ecological preservation, cultural diversity, and racial & sexual equality as much as she sympathizes with the Athshean society in which dream-time and world-time are well-balanced.

선험적 추론과 과학적 경험 -바바라 킹솔버의 『비상』

강용기 ( Yong Ki Kang ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2013 현대영미소설 Vol.20 No.2

In Flight Behavior, Barbara Kingsolver seemingly polarizes the epistemology employed in investigating why monarch butterflies have happened to aggregate in a small Appalachian community in rural Tennessee; People in the community believe that their territory is blessed by God whereas Dr. Byron, a butterfly scientist, looks for a scientific reasoning. In other words, how to reason one natural phenomenon is dualized into apriorism and scientific experience. Byron asserts that the abnormal migration of monarchs is a freakish biological event caused by climate change while it is a miracle to church-goers in the town. The dualized epistemology is unified in Dellarobia`s vision. Significantly enough, her holistic vision could galvanize ecocriticism or eco-friendly consciousness to the extent that it is on the same track with Deweyan organic metaphysics, because epistemological organity entails no exclusion of otherness. All that Byron has to do a sascientist is measure and count scientific data, and tell what is scientifically true. However, Dellarobia`s organic vision motivates her to do ethical practice toward survival of the monarchs as well as her own new world. Surely, her reciprocal reasoning is expected to enliven pro-environmental voices, which is also needed in today`s environmental politics as well as the relevant literary community.

오온(五蘊) 비우기 ― 제럴드 비즈너의 『챈서즈』

강용기 ( Yong-ki Kang ) 한국영미문화학회 2016 영미문화 Vol.16 No.4

This essay purposes to point out, based on the Buddhist theory of Panca-skandha(five aggregates), the nothingness of cultural identity stereotyping the solar dancers and the other native Americans in Gerald Vizenor`s Chancers . The solar dancers` fundermental nativism results from the fallacy of perception, will and consciousness, above all other aggregates. As Vizenor claims, however, their never-changing cultural belief was typified by the white colonialists` desire for domination. A main character, Peter(Round Dance) subverts the solar dancers` cultural value by letting them realize its emptiness. In doing so, Round Dance deconstructs the value of five aggregates without privileging perception, will and consciousness over form and feelings. He subverts some particular aggregates by reinscribing the other particular ones without extrapolating any theory or belief. In doing so, his love- making is a practice of cultural deconstruction. By criticizing the fixity of Native American cultural value in this novel, Vizenor intends to invalidate `Indianess` which was set up by the white and promote to enliven the native culture, letting it actively involve interdependent cultural exchange in the present world. Therefore, it is fairly said that his message in the novel is not rejecting the native culture but reinvigorating it.

어슐러 K. 르귄의 『어둠의 왼손』에서 현실의 확장

강용기 ( Yong Ki Kang ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2015 현대영미소설 Vol.22 No.3

Fredric Jameson criticizes that Le Guin`s The Left Hand of Darkness simplifies the real world by erasing its historicity and presenting a world of androgyny. However, a group of feminist critiques depreciates the SF fiction as insufficiently feminist or even patriarchical because every homogeneous Gethenian in this fiction is called male pronoun ‘he.’ The feminist critics also point out that Le Guin reduces our real world to a sexual-distinction-dominated terrain by sex-typing Karhide as female, Orgoreyn as male, and Gobrin Ice Sheet as androgynous. The feminist critics are likely to agree to share Jameson`s terminology ‘world-reduction’ when they downplay The Left Hand of Darkness as non-feminist utopian fiction. As much as The Left Hand of Darkness reflects Lao Tzu`s socio-political practicality, however, it promotes world-extension rather than reduces the reality of our own world. For Le Guin suggests an alternative society where many kinds of discrimination are eliminated, along with Lao Tzu who proposes a non-authoritative communal state by practicing the Taoist politics of non-action. After reading The Left Hand of Darkness, now, the implied reader is supposed to extend his or her own view of world as s/he combines the two world-views, real and imagined. Besides, Le Guin`s Taoism-rooted world-view of interdependence complements the westerner`s hierarchical dualism involving conflict and collision, which results in a generic extension of the reader`s world-view.

듀이의 실용주의는 인간중심사상인가?

강용기 ( Yong Ki Kang ) 한국현대영어영문학회 2013 현대영어영문학 Vol.57 No.3

John Dewey`s view of nature has been dualized as anthropocentrism or ecocentrism; the former assessment is enacted predominantly by Bob P. Taylor, Eric Katz and C. A. Bowers while Hugh P. McDonald and Anthony Weston attempts to evidence the latter. Taylor and Katz criticizes that Deweyan naturalism regards non-human nature as a mere means to enable humans to realize their own desire or interests, and Bowers stigmatizes Dewey as a cultural sectionalist centered on Eurocentric mindset, marking that his naturalism roots in Charles Darwin`s evolutionism, per se. However, reversed voices co-exist with those negative assessments; remarking that Dewey named his philosophy as ``naturalistic metaphysics,`` McDonald claims that Dewey admits the intrinsic value of non-human nature by suggesting a theory of relational value while Weston advocates Deweyan environmental pragmatism and its logical efficiency as he vehemently contests the logic of non-anthropocentrism. Dewey`s holistic pragmatism itself cannot be dualistically conceptualized as anthropocentrism or ecocentrism since his experimentalism which is significantly distanced from a priori reasoning welcomes experiential, thus, logical organity. Above all, the concept of his scientific and social ``inquiry`` and its instrumentation invalidates any dualistic mapping of Dewey`s metaphysics and his methodology. The value of non-human nature is spacio-temporally formed depending on scientific inquiry and democratic decision-making in a particular community whether it is homocentric or ecocentric. Besides, anthropocentrism should be differentiated from the concept of anthropomorphism because any metaphysics including Deweyan pragmatism cannot possibly avoid anthropomorphism. (Chonnam National University)

인간과 자연 사이에서-마거릿 애트우드의 『오릭스와 크레이크』

강용기 ( Kang Yong-ki ) 한국현대영어영문학회 2017 현대영어영문학 Vol.61 No.1

In Oryx and Crake (2003), Margaret Atwood features an ecological double-discourse as she draws more attention to genetic engineering than anything else. Crake might be an ecological savior in that he creates genetically modified humans (Crakers) who are eco-friendly per se, and lets them reside on the earth after destroying almost all of anthropocentric humans. Corresponding with their technoscience-addled mind-set, Crake and Oryx reject all of humanistic art and thoughts whatsoever. Scientific reductionism involving Crake`s genetically modified animals contests his `brave new world` where GM animals like pigoons and wolvogs unexpectedly reveal their cruelty and violence to hurt and even kill humans. And a main character and narrator, Jimmy- Snowman`s position complicates the narrative of this novel. Jimmy countervails Crake`s ecological idealism as far as he is driven to reestablish such traditional humanitarian values as love, freedom, spiritualism, etc. `Words man` Jimmy-Snowman counterbalances the materialistic world-view of `numbers man` Crake. Entrapped in `zero hour,` however, Snowman suffers from aphasia which implies losing his sense of direction between humanitarianism and ecological idealism. Atwood not only demands readers to be alert of loosing the humanitarian values when Atwood obviously criticizes the limit of cutting-edge techno-scientific development and practice by presenting an eschatological disaster in the novel. But she also seems to show her eco-friendly position by contrasting humans` ecological vulnerability with nonhuman beings` wondrous adaptability to environmental change. Jimmy-Snowman better-reifies a between figure than any other character. (Chonnam University)

논문 : 실용주의 환경론과 근본주의 생태론의 접점 모색

강용기 ( Yong Ki Kang ) 한국영어영문학회 2010 영어 영문학 Vol.56 No.1

음양 이론을 통한 성차별주의의 극복과 그 한계

강용기(Kang, Yong-Ki) 한국동서비교문학학회 2005 동서 비교문학저널 Vol.0 No.13