복수(復讐)의 진부함 : <버닝>과 원한의 논리

강우성(Kang, Woosung) 삼육대학교 신학연구소 2021 신학과 학문 Vol.31 No.-

이 논문은 처벌과 용서 사이에서 ‘복수’의 길을 선택한 윤리의 문제를 최근에 나온 이창동 감독의 영화 <버닝>(2018)을 통해 살펴본다. 생각 없음에 기반을 두고 도덕원칙에 무지한 악의 평범성이 아니라, 공정을 내세워 정의의 문제를 치환하는 ‘복수의 평범성’을 통해 한국 사회의 병폐와 원한의 논리에 대해 사유해 본다. <버닝>은 소외된 한국의 젊은 남성이 자신의 실패한 욕망과 남성성의 위기를 사회적 계급적 대의 형태를 통해 해소하려는 일종의 환상의 드라마이다. 사회적 경쟁과 여성에 대한 욕망 모두에서 상위계급의 남성에게 패배한 하층의 남성이 환상을 통해 이들을 심판하고 용서하는 복수의 드라마를 그려내는 원한의 논리가 분석의 대상이다. 종수의 원한극을 종교적 용서나 윤리적 정의로 비판하기보다 공정의 이름아래 민낯을 드러낸 우리 사회의 병리적 독선의 하나로 형상화한다는 점에서 <버닝>은 정치적 영화이다. <버닝>은 비동시적인 것이 동시적으로 혼재하는 한국 사회의 뒤틀린 탈근 대성을 가감 없이 드러내는 일종의 일그러진 자화상이다. <버닝>의 정치학은 분노에 찬 사회적 저항의 주체들이 공정을 내세워 복수의 놀이를 펼칠 때 여성을 비롯한 타자들을 혐오하는 독선적 도착의 논리가 내재되어 있음을 고발한다. This essay attempts to explain why the cruel act of evilness often depends upon the logic of Nietzschean ressentiment that concerns less of an Arendtian guilt of thoughtlessness than the banality of vengeance in Lee Chang-Dong’s latest film Burning (2018). This film describes the marginalized young male, born after the 1997 financial crisis, who demands not equality or justice in social affairs, but the fairness of the rule in the game of social survival. The demand for fairness is a symptom of sheer frustration in the unconscious mindset of the South Korean youth since it displaces the battle against the system with antagonism towards social minorities, especially against women: the self-claimed victim identity is most explicit in their misogyny. Burning effectively takes issue with the distorted structure of feeling of misogynist repulsion in the South Korean youth, which is often disguised as the vengeful class antagonism against the “gold spoon.” Burning is especially unique in the way it delineates Jongsu’s seemingly social drama of class vengeance against the wealthy as an outcome of his perverse fantasy of unconscious masculine desire. With this fantasy of mature masculinity, Burning focuses on the way Jongsu, through his imagination, creates and demolishes the fake object of his own revenge while being ignorant of Haemi’s desire. In this sense, Jongsu’s murder of Ben can be seen as the self-righteous act of judgment and forgiveness. Burning is a drama of ressentiment, less tragic than banal. This film is political in that it shockingly problematizes the sheer banality, not evilness, of this “classless class struggle” of the South Korean youth, which camouflages the perverse logic of youthful ressentiment and displaces social struggle with the one for masculine rivalry or misogynist sexuality.

인공지능시대의 인간중심주의와 타자화

강우성 ( Kang Woosung ) 한국비교문학회 2017 比較文學 Vol.0 No.72

인공지능의 시대에 범람하는 담론들은 인류의 미래에 대해 양가적이다. 인공지능 담론은 인간과 기계의 관계를 성찰하고 인공지능 기계의 발전이 인간에게 던지는 도전들에 답하는 시도들이다. 인공지능 담론은 근본적으로 과학기술의 가능성에 대한 양면적 전망을 핵심으로 하지만 심층에 놓인 근본적 질문은 어떻게 인간중심주의를 극복할 것인가이다. 특히 영화에 나타난 인공지능 시대에 대한 진단은 과학기술 진영에 비해 극히 비관적이다. 인공지능 영화들은 재앙의 가능성에 대한 경고를 인간중심주의에서 찾는 특징을 보여준다. 인공지능 담론에서 두드러진 인간중심주의의 논리는 개별 수행능력이 아니라 일반 능력에 있어 인간이 기계에 대해 갖는 우월성에 대한 확신으로 표현된다. 그러나 이 글은 인간의 일반 능력 자체가 불가해성에 의존하며 예측이나 검증이 불가능하다는 점에 근거하는 논리임을 주장한다. 일반 능력의 우월성과 확실성은 증명된바 없다. 이를 위해 이 논문은 최근에 개봉되어 많은 관심을 끈 인공지능영화 <엑스 마키나>에 대한 상세한 분석을 통해, 인공지능 시대 인간의 지적·감정적능력을 구현할 기계인간의 창조에 관한 전망이 불가능을 꿈꾸는 환상에 불과하며, 그 이면에는 여전히 남성에 의한 여성의 지배, 인종적 소수자에 대한 억압, 낯선 존재에 대한 타자화와 같은 지극히 모순적인 인간관계의 폐해가 고스란히 남아 있음을 밝힌다. Discourses of Artificial Intelligence (AI) abound with ambivalent attitudes concerning the future of humankind. These are the answers to the time old question as to whether AI will contribute to the advancement of human relation with man-made machines. Deep down in the AI discourses there lurks a fundamental problem of overcoming anthropocentrism. Especially in the realm of cinema, the so-called AI films consistently demonstrated serious concerns about the possible disasters men could neither program, nor predict, nor prevent. Proponents of AI technology rely on the unfounded belief in man`s superiority of general capability over AI`s specific performativity. This paper attempts to rebut this anthropocentric belief in the human perfectability: man`s general excellence must not be verified because of man`s impossibility to pre-program all the unpredictable variables; man is not the being of conscious but of unconscious and affect. In a detailed analysis of a recent AI film Ex Machina, this paper argues that the dream of making an affective AI constitutes a mere fantasy, while insisting that underneath the very fantasy there remain persistent anthropocentric problems concerning man`s mastery over woman, racial others, and alien beings.

저항의 리듬 - 데리다와 정신분석 -

강우성(Woosung Kang) 한국현상학회 2021 철학과 현상학 연구 Vol.88 No.-

이 논문은 자크 데리다의 해체가 현전의 형이상학 전체와의 대결인 동시에 프로이트 및 라캉의 정신분석과 비판적으로 대면한 사유라는 관점에서 출발한다. 데리다의 정신분석 전유는 68혁명 이후 프랑스 현대철학과 정신분석간의 착종된 관계를 해명하는 이론적 작업에 중요한 실마리를 던져준다. 데리다는 ‘프로이트로의 복귀’를 주장한 라캉의 정신분석 사유에 의문을 제기하며 프로이트가 충분히 사변하지 못한 탈형이상학의 계기들을 소환한다. 데리다는 프로이트의 사후성, 흔적, 반복강박 관념들을 ‘초월론적으로’ 사변하여 형이상학의 개념화 및 ‘쾌원리’에 포섭되지 않는 프로이트 사유의 해체적 리듬을 밝혀낸다. 데리다는 라캉이 ‘죽음충동’을 언어적 상징계의 공백으로 존재하는 실재의 초월적 기표 및 그 환상적 원인인 대상 a와 연결시키는 동시에 상상적 자아에 적대적인 주체가 쾌원리를 초월하는 파괴적 충동의 근원이라고 표상함으로써 반복강박에 내포된 차연의 리듬을 존재론적 공백의 부정적 표상으로 환원한다고 비판한다. 라캉에게 죽음충동, 즉 오직 부정적으로 표상된 실재는 상상적 자아에 맞서 싸우는 주체의 자기파괴적 충동에서 나오며 본능처럼 쾌원리 이전에 대타자에 의해 주어진다. 데리다는 프로이트를 언어적으로 전유하여 체계화한 라캉이 프로이트의 탈형이상학 계기들에 잠재된 허구의 목소리, 문학이라는 타자의 리듬을 사유하지 못함으로써 정신분석의 잠재성을 약화시킨다고 본다. 데리다에게 해체론의 정치성은 프로이트가 발견한 이 저항의 리듬을 이중결속과 복수의 경로를 통해 리듬의 저항으로 반복하는 작업에 달려있다. This paper starts from the supposition that Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction is the theoretical subversion of the entire Western metaphysics of presence as well as the outcome of intensive and critical confrontation with the psychoanalyses of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. The dynamic appropriation of psychoanalysis by Derrida sheds a crucial light on the theoretical understanding of the troubled relationship between French theory and psychoanalysis in general after May ’68. Especially, putting into question Lacan’s claim of “the return to Freud,” Derrida effectively summons non-metaphysical, though rarely speculated, motifs in Freud’s thought. Drawing on Freud’s three deconstructive potentialities, Nächtraglichkeit, trace, and repetition compulsion, Derrida demonstrates how Freud is able to figure out the rhythm of drive uncontained by pleasure principle. Derrida is overtly critical of Lacan’s re-appropriation of Freudian psychoanalysis and the notion of death drive. It is linked to the movement of transcendental signifier which sutures the void in the Real as objet a and to the negative force of the subject’s destructive drive against imaginary ego, thereby reducing the rhythm of différances into the ontological effect of the void. For Derrida, Lacan’s blindness towards the power of resistance inherent in literature as the other of philosophy and psychanalysis is critical. The political in Derrida is the work of translating this rhythm of the other, its ever-iterating rhythm of resistance in literature, into something analogous to the resistance of rhythm in networks.

문학이론 교육의 한국적 수업모형 연구

강우성(Woosung Kang) 한국비평이론학회 2013 비평과이론 Vol.18 No.1

This essay attempts to suggest viable teaching models of literary theory education in Korea by exploring the theoretical as well as practical implications of "Theory Studies" in Korea for the past 15 years. Investigating the peculiar trend of theoretical interests in two prominent critical theory journals, Contemporary Criticism and Theory and Criticism and Theory, we discovered that Korean scholars of theory have preferred Lacanian psychoanalysis and Post-colonialism over the other theoretical positions. Unlike Anglophone academic journals whose 30-year index demonstrated the tendency of slow decline in theoretical studies, Korean journals show continued research interest in the so-called "Theory Criticism." In Korea, the 1990s witnessed a sort of upsurge of theoretical engagement and investment in contemporary "French" theories after the collapse of the stronghold of Marxist theory. The status of theory in Korea appears to have been stable and steady: pure theoretical researches and "theory criticisms" are getting popular, though classroom situation remains deplorable. In order to overcome the predilection for certain theories and enhance the theoretical literacy in literary education, it is urgently required to set up some basic principles of theory education. Combining the diachronic analysis with synchronic confrontation as the standard way of doing theories, this essay suggests two teaching models of theory education in Korea. One is for "history of theory"; the other for "theoretical overdeterrnination." While identifying relevant theoretical moments in literary and aesthetic texts, teachers help students confront "reflective moments" of vanous theoretical texts in their critical reflection. The success of theory education in Korea will depend upon developing such a theory-conscious reflection in the classroom through the practice of theory criticism.

문학 이후: 데리다의 해체론과 미국 문학이론

강우성(Woosung Kang) 한국비평이론학회 2006 비평과이론 Vol.11 No.1

  This paper tries to think about the cultural implication of Derridean deconstruction in the American intellectual milieu, especially taking issue of the concept of “literature” in the context of American-bred deconstructive criticism represented by Paul de Man. Delving into the complex process of theoretical transplantation, I analyse how philosophical claims of Derridean deconstruction came to be popular among literary critics in the United States, rather than in the field of philosophical debates. In America there has been a strong philosophical tradition of positivism, pragmatism, and the philosophy of language, and against these native traditions Paul de Man bravely articulates and develops the theoretical necessity of deconstructive criticism. In so doing, however, de Man also extends, even distorts, the spirit of Derridean deconstruction by unnecessarily ontologizing some key concepts and tenets of deconstruction as theoretical weapons for repeatedly performing self-reflexive acts of literary deconstruction. As it turns out, de Man"s literary deconstruction tends to presuppose an unremovable rhetorical contradiction or instability within the text and tries to show that every text is in its own way, always already, a self-deconstructive empty space. In contrast, Stanley Cavell"s theory of reading is much closer to Derridean deconstructive move in that it does not presuppose any kind of a priori structural nihilism, positive or negative. Overall, the lesson of the transplantation of Derrida"s deconstruction might be that a creative theory of reading is still needed in the work of deconstruction despite critical reflections on the literary iconoclasm of deconstructive criticism in America.

The Political Claim of Deleuzean Shame

강우성(Woosung Kang) 한국비평이론학회 2024 비평과이론 Vol.29 No.1

이 논문은 질 들뢰즈의 수치 개념의 정치적 함의를 추적하는 시도로서 수치가 마조히즘적 물러남(masochistic withdrawal)이라는 저항의 정서와 연결되어 있다고 주장한다. 들뢰즈는 수치와 죄의식을 명확하게 구분하는데, 금기와 금지의 위반에서 비롯되는 자기처벌과 고통이 주는 역설적 쾌에 주목하는 죄의식은 수치와 아무런 상관이 없다. 들뢰즈는 오이디푸스적 자기처벌에서 발생하는 고통스런 쾌에 집중하는 정신분석적 죄의식 개념과 수치를 분리한다. 이러한 분리는 들뢰즈가 정신분석의 쾌원리 및 오이디푸스화를 비판해 온 역사와도 일치한다. 수치 개념을 통해 정신분석을 탈영토화하는 들뢰즈의 또 다른 측면은 사디즘과 마조히즘의 병리적 결합을 해체한 일에서도 찾을 수 있다. 들뢰즈는 마조히즘적 정동과 고통의 실재성을 죄의식 및 처벌의 쾌에 기반을 둔 사디즘적, 반동적, 성애화된 공격성과 분리한다. 들뢰즈는 마조히즘적 수치를 소수자의 강력한 저항의 무기로 재해석하며, 자본주의의 요구에서 마조히즘적으로 물러나는 소수자의 행위가 정치적 저항의 근간을 이룬다고 주장한다. 들뢰즈의 마조히즘적 수치 개념이 지닌 정치적 함의는 그의 수동적 종합 개념에 존재하는 고통의 리듬과 연결되어 있기에 더욱 의미 있다. 들뢰즈의 마조히즘적 수치와 수축(수동적 종합)은 마치 멜빌의 필경사 바틀비의 무위, 즉 자아, 쾌락, 전지구화에 맞선 마조히즘적 물러남처럼 쾌락의 추구가 명령으로 주어지는 전지구적 법칙에 소수자들이 저항할 수 있는 차이를 만들어 내는 데 중요한 역할을 한다. The primary aim of this paper is to present the political implication of Deleuze’s idea of shame as the affect of resistance through masochistic withdrawal. Shame, for Deleuze, is clearly distinct from the feeling of guilt in that it does not concern with the pleasure of suffering and self-punishment caused by the breach of prohibition. Indeed, Deleuze makes lots of efforts to save the affect of shame from being co-opted by the psychoanalytic notion pairing off with the feeling of guilt and the pleasurable pain ensued from the Oedipal punishment. Deleuze’s separation of shame from guilt coincides with his lifelong struggle with the pleasure principle of psychoanalysis and its constant Oedipalization. Another crucial dimension of Deleuze’s deterritorialization of psychoanalysis in terms of shame is the break-up of the pathological bind between sadism and masochism. Especially, Deleuze unties the ontological affect of masochism and the literality of pain from sadistic, reactive, and sexualized aggressivity which is primarily dependent on the guilt and the pleasure of punishment. Masochistic shame is newly valorized by Deleuze as the powerful resistant weapon of the minorities whose act of withdrawal from the demand of capitalist discourse constitutes the very basis of political resistance. The political implication of Deleuze’s notion of masochistic shame becomes doubly significant when it is connected to the rhythm of pain in passive synthesis; masochist contraction, like Bartleby’s inaction, against ego, pleasure, and globalization helps us to secure and re-establish free, little, local differences in the overall micropolitical resistance to the global law of injunction to enjoyment.

정밀측위장비를 활용한 멀티콥터 통합항법센서의 항법시스템오차 모델링 분석 및 비교

강우성(Woosung Kang),오정환(Jeonghwan Oh),이동진(Dongjin Lee),김도윤(Doyoon Kim) 한국항공우주학회 2020 한국항공우주학회 학술발표회 논문집 Vol.2020 No.7

군도의 정치학: 하와이 주권론과 정착민 서사

강우성 ( Woosung Kang ) 미국소설학회 2024 미국소설 Vol.31 No.1

This paper attempts to elucidate the historical trajectory of native sovereignty movements in Hawai’ian archipelago and their socio-political struggle with Asian settler colonialism. Proponents of Hawai’ian native sovereignty have continuously demanded the “nation-to-nation” negotiation and the recognition of the U. S. federal government, while Asian settlers as “locals” in Hawai’i, now dominating the ethnic power structures of the State of Hawai’i since 1959, strenuously insist on the priority of multiculturalism in the society of immigrants. Politically allied with Democratic Party, Asian settlers are not willing to recognize the rights of indigenous people and their self-determination, let alone forming a coalition with natives. Sovereignty activists argue that this “liberal multi-cultural settler ideology” effectively supports what they call the structure of “settler colonialism” which relies on the unjustifiable identification of natives and settlers. Aptly described in Gary Pak’s novels, Asian settler colonialism in Hawai’i is a structural obstacle that hinders settlers’ coalition with natives by compelling them to forget the history of racial victimization of natives in Hawai’ian archipelago. After briefly revisiting the controversial issues of native sovereignty and settler colonialism in Hawai’i, I argue that archipelagic politics of coalition could really be dependent upon the settler’s recognition, not concession, of the legitimacy of indigenous sovereignty as a realistic strategy for mutual benefit. To be an American should not be the unilateral goal of all ethnic groups in the territories of the States.

이론비평'을 통한 비평이론 교육

강우성(Woosung Kang) 한국영미문학교육학회 2013 영미문학교육 Vol.17 No.3

This paper purports to present practical teaching models and curriculum of literary theory at a graduate level in Korea by examining the theoretical and pedagogical implications of what might be termed "Theory Criticism" in several academic journals in Anglophone culture for the past 10 years. Critically analysing the recent trends of theory studies, especially during the period after the so-called "the Death of Theory," I argue that journals devoted to theory demonstrated the significant change in doing theory in terms of thinking possibilities of political potentiality and cultural diversification of theory itself. Among various journals, Diacritics, Critical Inquiry, and Parallax are chosen for their consistent commitment to the theoretical discussion in the field of literary studies. Theoretical concerns of these journals after 2005 can best be classified under three categories: increasing political interest, continued devotion to cultural or aesthetic phenomena, and the renewed reflection on what makes a theory a theory. Current shifts in theory studies mark a crucial challenge to our literary theory education in Korea, where classroom situation now suffers a dire lack of the discipline in critical thinking amidst relative proliferation of critical discourse outside the academia. One way to overcome such an indigence of theoretical education in Korea may come from the lesson of recent political turn of theory in Anglophone studies. It is urgent as well as necessary to positively adopt the pedagogy of theory criticism while maintaining the text-based close reading in dealing with theoretical texts. For this task, I present three teaching models practically applicable in literary theory education in Korea: seminar on theory criticism, theoretical encounter with literary texts, and thematic approach to theory. As the case of actual teaching experience based on the thematic approach indicates, literary theory education via "theory criticism" proved not only viable but practicable as well. The aim of teaching literary theory should be geared to enhance none other than the faculty of critical thinking itself.

‘이론 이후’의 문학에 어떤 희망이 가능한가?

강우성(Woosung Kang) 한국영미문학교육학회 2006 영미문학교육 Vol.10 No.1

  In the aftermath of the explosive proliferation of theories for some 30 years, it is now fashionable to refer to “the death of theory” as a way of expressing or reshaping the critical concerns about the future of literary studies. Some conservative critics insist that now is the time to return to the study of literary “text itself,” while literary theorists present the idea that it is impossible to do without theory even if we admit that literary theory can no longer be counted upon as the legitimate guide for literary scholars. After the decline of so-called “grand narratives” and after a few rounds of “free plays” by psychoanalysis and deconstruction, however, theory today definitely loses its intellectual attractiveness in many, if not all, fields of humanities. With these contentions and diagnoses, this paper argues that the recent appearance of discourses on the crisis of literature, which is based on the critique of the enthusiasm for literary theory turning sour, does not merit a full critical attention, because what the critics of “text itself” contend still presupposes a theory of their own, that is, an a-political formalism.<BR>  Moreover, even the critic like Karatani Kojin, who laments over the death of modern literature in the Western countries as well as countries like Korea and Japan, believes that it is not theory but the post-industrial society that assumes such a decisive threat to the future of literature. Focusing on the critical implications of deconstruction, especially the concept of literature in the deconstructive criticism, this thesis explores the way to refashion the status of literature and literary theory in the future. Literature takes a significant place in Derrida"s deconstruction, but not as an independent realm but rather as a signifier to unsettle and destabilize any kind of coherence. As a theory of what makes a theory a theory, deconstruction contributes to the demonstration of the necessary theoretical moment in every text. What matters is not to theorize whether theory is possible or desirable but to figure out the way to develop a theory about the theoretical moment of literary text itself. Deconstruction would feature only a first step.