Memory of Childhood or Memory of History

Byoung Chun Min 한국영미문학교육학회 2012 영미문학교육 Vol.16 No.3

This study attempts to read Kazuo Ishiguro’s When We Were Orphans as a historical representation of modern subjectivity situated in the early twentieth century, the period in which this modern subjectivity began to be questioned, doubted, and thus disintegrated. In this novel, the main character Christopher Bank, who leads a successful life as a detective in England, tries to find his missing parents by revisiting the International Settlement in Shanghai where he spent his childhood. Having started this mission with a firm belief in fulfilling justice in the world, Christopher gradually becomes disillusioned toward his mission as a detective throughout the story. This disillusionment derives from the unique nature of the International Settlement. The basic notion of the International Settlement lies in its endorsement of the harmonious mingling of inter-nations, and this mingling is enabled by its residents’ faith in universal humanity and rational subjectivity. This faith also serves as a basis of the traditional Western imperialism. But as the story goes on, it comes to be revealed that this faith cannot be detached from the new imperialistic project of imposing national or even racial identity. It is in fact this precarious nature of Western imperialistic enterprises that gives rise to the displaced representation of Christopher’s childhood memory. Given this historical significance of Christopher’s memory, this study further argues that this novel’s representation of distorted memory is a literary analysis of the working of unconsciousness and it also plays a crucial role in debunking the falsity of what modernity fashions itself into. Indeed, Christopher’s memory itself attests to the problematic nature of imperialistic discourse as a historical manifestation of modernity.

Creating a Paradigm of Gentleman by Displacing History: A Historical Reading of John Halifax, Gentleman

( Byoung Chun Min ) 한국근대영미소설학회 2014 근대 영미소설 Vol.21 No.2

This essay attempts to read Dinah Maria Mulock’s John Halifax, Gentleman by focusing on how the novel identifies and justifies ideals of gentlemanliness (or paradigmatic masculinity). This essay’s main argument is that these ideals of gentlemanliness are made possible only by displacing the conflicting history of both the Romantic and the Victorian era. In order to highlight the ways in which this novel displaces history, the essay pays critical attention to two issues: class and gender. First, for the issue of class, this essay covers self-help ideals, poverty, and Evangelicalism to argue that John Halifax’s self-positioning as an apolitical Christian gentleman entails Mulock’s political, ideological bent toward conservatives who tried to contain contemporary people’s attention to the social problems generated from class struggles. Second, for the issue of gender, the essay draws on how this novel deals with domestic ideology, evincing a conclusion that, although domestic ideology foregrounds feminine values as crucial part of its social working, these feminine values are ultimately appropriated into John Halifax’s paradigmatic masculinity based on patriarchal orders. Given the ways in which the novel addresses these two issues, however, it is hard to deny that Mulock’s historical anxiety toward both her and John Halifax’s contemporaries is embedded in her strong will to create an impeccably virtuous gentleman.

Survey on the Current Status of Laboratory Animal Quality Control Program in Korea

Byoung Chun Lee,Mee Kyung Jang,Kab Ryong Chae,Dae Youn Hwang,Byoung Guk Kim,Seung Wan Jee,Sun Bo Shim,Su Hae Lee,Ji Soon Sin,Chang Jun Bae,Jong-Min Woo,Jung Sik Cho,Kwang Soo Joo,Chuel Kyu Kim 한국실험동물학회 2008 Laboratory Animal Research Vol.24 No.1

It is critical to harmonize the laboratory animal quality control program of each organization in order to improve the quality of laboratory animals. The aim of this study was to survey the current status of the laboratory animal quality control of 6 major animal suppliers and 14 Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) organizations. First of all, 6 suppliers provided more than 3 million animals, and 99% of them were specific pathogen-free (SPF) mice and rats. 88% of the GLP organizations were also using SPF animals, 81% of which were mice and rats. Two suppliers importing and offering animals were depending on the animal health report certified by providers, 2 suppliers were outsourcing to a domestic monitoring center, and 2 suppliers were monitoring in-house and simultaneously sending live animals to international centers for microbiological monitoring. All suppliers were monitoring the genetic integrity of inbred animals only once in a year. Fifty seven percentage of GLP organizations were doing the in-house microbiological monitoring, and only one of them was evaluating the genetic background of animals. Four suppliers monitoring animal quality were applying more than 5 samples of each animal facility unit quarterly. Fifty five percentage of GLP organizations monitored with each facility unit and 36% of them chose samples in the experimental group. Additionally, the animal number used in monitoring was 3-5, and monitoring frequency was 4 times in a year. Two suppliers sending animals to foreign companies for monitoring adopted almost all agents as testing items. Two suppliers were testing critical items including Ectromelia virus, Sendai virus, Mouse Hepatitis virus, Hantaan virus, Rat Coronavirus, Minute virus of mice, M. pulmonis, C. piliforme, and H. hepaticus. It were only 5 microoragnisms, MHV, Sendai virus, M. pulmonis, C. piliforme, and Ectoparasites which more than half of GLP organizations were monitoring commonly. Almost all organizations had their own SOPs for animal health monitoring and required a nationally harmonized guideline on the laboratory animal quality control. The result of this survey will be basic information on the national policy of the management of laboratory animal quality, and contribute to the improvement of laboratory animal quality in Korea.

Bacterial Composition of Respiratory Organs and Intestine in Mice and Rats

Byoung Chun Lee,Mee Kyung Jang,Jong-Kun Seo,Jin-Ho Kang,Kab Ryong Chae,Dae Youn Hwang,Byoung Guk Kim,Seung Wan Jee,Sun Bo Shim,Su Hae Lee,Ji Soon Sin,Chang Jun Bae,Jong-Min Woo,Chuel Kyu Kim 한국실험동물학회 2008 Laboratory Animal Research Vol.24 No.1

The change of microbial flora in intestine and respiratory organs make some effects on animal health, which can cause some aberrations to experiment data. Therefore, it is an important factor to maintain the homogeneity of the bacterial composition of each organ. In this study, the bacterial distribution of respiratory organs and intestine were analyzed from 247 mice and 200 rats by analyzing biochemical properties and 16S rDNA sequencing. The total of 1,075 isolates were classified to 35 species of 17 genera. In case of rats, intestinal microbial flora were composed of 5 major bacteria including E. coli, P. mirabilis, M. morganii, C. freundii, and P. vulgaris, and 5 bacteria such as E. coli, P. mirabilis, S. aureus, S. cohnii, and M. morganii also mainly consisted of the microbial flora of respiratory organs. In case of mice, intestinal microbial flora were composed of 4 major bacteria including E. coli, P. mirabilis, A. lwoffi, and L. adecarboxylata, and 5 bacteria such as E. coli, B. sphaericus, S. auricularis, A. lwoffi, and L. adecarboxylata also mainly consisted of microbial flora of respiratory organs. This study suggested that B. sphaericus, G. morbillorum, S. paucimobilis, Staphylococcus spp. were specific in respiratory organs, and that M. morganii and Citrobacter spp. were almost specific in intestine. This study also can give some basic information to understand the relationship between animal care environment and microbial composition of animal organs.

What Manners Mean in Jane Austen’s Emma

Byoung Chun Min 19세기영어권문학회 2010 19세기 영어권 문학 Vol.14 No.2

This essay attempts to examine what manners signify in Jane Austen’s Emma and how this meaning of manners was formed in history. In the plot of Emma, the issue of how to conceive and practice appropriate manners is presented as a major theme, and Emma tackles this issue by exhibiting various characters who represent a certain aspect of manners and then testing their respective legitimacy as practitioners of manners. Emma’s constant self-correction concerning her notion of manners is a result of this process of testing in which the novel engages. In the course of this process, Emma suggests that a formal display of refinement, though necessary, is not a sufficient condition for manners especially when it is motivated by self-interest, and that sincere and sympathetic feelings toward others, as most compellingly exemplified in the character of George Knightley, should be the most essential factor of appropriate manners. This opposition between self-interest and sincerity is related to controversies of eighteenth-century moral philosophy in both historical and conceptual terms. On the issue of the location of a moral domain and the origin of morality, philosophers represented by Hobbes and Mendeville contend that a moral domain does not consist in human nature and that morality derives from a communal pursuit of individuals’ self-interest. On the other hand, empiricists such as Hutcheson and Hume foreground sincere and sympathetic feelings of humanity as a source of morality, thus locating a moral domain in sincerity and sympathy immanent in human mind. At these controversies on morality lie the conflicting concepts of manners in Emma, and the connection between these philosophical discourses and Emma’s notion of manners attests to the historicity of the novel. Although the story of Emma filters out negative elements immanent in manners for the purpose of finding and suggesting appropriate manners, this work of filtering does not necessarily mean that manners in Emma should be considered to be an exclusive social principle by which only a few desirable qualities are selected as a basis of appropriateness. Rather, manners in Emma act as an inclusive and malleable principle for a society, since a variety of conflicting concepts-i.e., sincerity, artificiality, naturalness, civility, and morality-are incorporated into the notion of manners, as illustrated in the novel's conclusion part where various characters, who embody these conflicting concepts, harmoniously co-exist in the world of manners. With this inclusive feature of manners, this essay ultimately argues that manners are a social apparatus that constantly undergoes self-reflexive modifications in order to sustain and solidify the ascendancy of the dominant class.

Old Cherished Memories or New Commercial Products?: Mary Shelley’s Retrospective Writings on the Hunt Circle

( Byoung Chun Min ) 한국영어영문학회 2021 영어 영문학 Vol.67 No.4

This essay attempts to read Mary Shelley’s retrospective writings (specifically, The Last Man, Preface to Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Preface to The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley) from the perspective that these writings include significant elements that highlight how the Hunt circle’s public ideals were received in the Victorian period. When Shelley wrote retrospectively about her husband, the ideal publicity that the Hunt circle attempted to embody in the context of post-Napoleonic politics and culture became not so much a feasible principle for realizing the public good as a past intellectual experiment about which only a critical assessment could be made from a later perspective. The disintegration of the Hunt circle caused by the deaths of the three key members (i.e., John Keats, Percy Shelley, and Byron), indeed, entailed the demise of all the practical public implications that the Hunt circle’s activities bore for contemporaries. Although Shelley was a consistent witness to all the public and private activities of the Hunt circle, her ambivalent position toward the Hunt circle made her vacillate between an insider and an outsider; therefore, while continuing to revive the Hunt circle’s achievements for the Victorian public, Shelley ceaselessly revealed a critical attitude toward the Hunt circle’s public practices at the same time. Given this unique position that Shelley assumed in relation to the Hunt circle, this essay explores how her retrospective writings on the Hunt circle reconstruct (or deconstruct) its members’ political, cultural practices and how this re/deconstruction inflects the Hunt circle’s notion of ideal publicity.

A Social Satire or a Celebration?: The Ideological Working of Politeness in Alexander Pope`s The Rape of the Lock

( Byoung Chun Min ) 한국18세기영문학회 2010 18세기영문학 Vol.7 No.2

This study attempts to examine how and why Alexander Pope`s The Rape of the Lock both endorses and criticizes the society of Hampton Court by focusing on the notion of politeness in eighteenth-century England. In reading this poem, many critics have concentrated on its mock-heroic style, thus interpreting it as a satire of contemporary society represented by Hampton Court. But the poetic tone and narrative, in which this poem approvingly addresses the socio-cultural practices of Hampton Court`s society, do not fit into this satirical reading, since most descriptions of these practices evade a clear value judgment of moral, political issues on which a working satire should depend. Drawing upon this critical problem immanent in a satirical reading of this poem, this study argues that the operational principle of Hampton Court`s society, which underscores refined manners and material pursuits rather than moral, political correctness, derives from the notion of politeness that newly appeared in gradually commercialized societies of eighteenth-century England. The notion of politeness, which reflected the ethos of the growing merchant class and thus assumed a dominant position in eighteenth -century English society, functions as an ideological ground of The Rape of the Lock; that is, through the ideological working of politeness, cultural refinement and frivolous material pursuits of trivial things can be foregrounded in this poem without mutual contradiction and moral, political value judgment. Although the notion of politeness as a working ideology renders the world of this poem both amoral and apolitical, its vivid and ironical descriptions of social injustices complicate the way in which Pope`s authorial position is manifested. And from this complicated authorial position, this poem provides abundant ambivalence for the reader. On this point, this study argues that this poem`s ambivalence between satire and celebration attests to the extent to which eighteenth-century satirical writings were embedded in contemporary civil societies based on the notion of politeness, and thus they became both an accomplice and a debunker of these societies.

정치적 의제로서의 사유와 소통의 장의 실현 -셸리의『혼돈의 가면극』읽기

민병천 ( Byoung Chun Min ) 한국영어영문학회 2010 영어 영문학 Vol.56 No.4

This essay attempts to read Percy Bysshe Shelley s The Mask of Anarchy by attending to a political agenda that Shelley seeks to propose and embody in the poem. This poem was written as a response to an exceptional political event, the Peterloo Massacre, and thus it is evident that Shelley intended to engage in contemporary politics by writing this poem. As many critics have pointed out, however, the way in which this poem addresses social, plitical issues is ambivalent and even confusing, since it contains many elements that contradict each other, and sometimes its political visions are based on incoherent conceptions. For this reason, this poem has been considered to be a failure as an occasional poem which should provide the reader with a clear direction for political actions. Faced with this critical problem, this essay proposes that the ambivalence this poem reveals-e.g., the confrontation between moderate artistic fantasy and radical tenets -is not a retreat from political activism, as some critics suggested, but a result of its creation and embodiment of a public sphere which invites various social classes and their positions. The mode in which Shelley conceives this unified public sphere in the course of writing The Mask of Anarchy can be interpreted in terms of the following three features. First, this poem underscores the significance of thoughts in constituting a communal space between people, thus asking the reader to participate in this process of thinking on given issues. Second, this poem suggests that people should enlighten each other by engaging in communicative reciprocations. Lastly, the public sphere formulated by the previous two features should incorporate various socio-political agents beyond class boundaries (even oppressors themselves) into its own working field. After explaining how these three features are manifested in the poem, this essay argues that the unified public sphere thus formed in the poem is the very agenda that Shelley aims to propose for the contemporaneous politics and culture. As a conclusion, this essay highlights how Shelley s project of creating a unified public sphere finally failed in contemporary history through observing two contrasting receptions of Shelley s works.

Debunking Imperialist Discourses and Setting Up Resistance: Wide Sargasso Sea as a Reflexive Text of Englishness

민병천(Byoung Chun Min) 한국영미문학교육학회 2013 영미문학교육 Vol.17 No.3

In reading Jean Rhy's Wide Sargasso Sea, many critics have focused on this novel's function as a critique of Jane Eyre's English imperialistic subjectivity by identifying what counter-discourses this novel delivers. This essay, however, attempts to read this novel not by identifying counter-discourses against English imperialism but by drawing attention to its process of debunking the falsity of supposedly universal gaze of English subjectivity toward colonial others. The difficulty of finding counter-discourses to imperialism in Wide Sargasso Sea derives mostly from the main character Antoinette's racial identity as white Creoles. The in-between position of white Creoles after the abolition of slavery in the West Indies determines the characterization of Antoinette as a precarious and unstable figure in historical terms. Besides, Rochester's gaze toward Antoinette, which ceaselessly mystifies her historically oriented presence, contributes to her isolation from the reality. That is, Antoinette's character is not able to form an effective site of resistance against imperialistic discourses. Rather, this essay argues that a site of resistance in Wide Sargasso Sea can be found only by debunking imperialist discourses embedded in Rochester's narrative that mystifies and thus exploits Antoinette's historical presence. Ironically, this work of debunking is triggered by Christophine, who is tacitly complicit with imperialistic projects as a black Creole, since she at least functioned as a catalyst by which imperialistic discourses revealed and thus de-mystified themselves even though she did not conduct an act of resistance herself. Indeed, Rhys's critical reconstruction of imperialistic English subjectivity through Rochester's narrative should be said to derive from her insightful recognition of the newly established Englishness in the post-colonial period of England.

정치적 진보성과 문화적 세련성 사이 헌트와 해즐릿의 경우

민병천 ( Byoung Chun Min ) 영미문학연구회 2012 안과 밖 Vol.0 No.32

Recent studies on the second generation Romantic writers have attended to how these writers` literary practices were conditioned upon their contemporary history, as opposed to the traditional notion of Romanticism based on an affirmation of individual creativity. Although these studies meaningfully highlight the historicity inherent in seemingly individualistic Romantic texts, they have frequently considered these writers to be reactionary or at most apolitical. Jerome McCann`s and Ii, P. Thompson`s studies represent this critical tendency. But it is hard to say that these studies bring to full light the historical significance of Romantic literature, because they failed to see the way in which this historicity of Romantic texts is connected to their writers` own will to engage with political issues. More specifically, these critics place too much emphasis on how these writers` pursuit of cultural refinement contradicted contemporary radical politics, and thus most of those Romantic writers` cultural practices are interpreted as an evasion of political engagement. Faced with these problematic issues, this essay argues that the literary practices of William Hazlitt and Leigh Hunt can offer a meaningful historical case in which Romantic writers` endorsement of cultural refinement did not exclude radical politics but rather productively enriched and even rectified them. Unfortunately, Hazlitt and Hunt`s attempt to unify cultural refinement with radical politics in the ground of Republic of Letters was not actualized in the following historical progress. Still, their politico-cultural ideal toward the public good (as one branch of their contemporary radical politics) should, this essay argues, serve as a historical model which subscribes to the political legitimacy of intellectuals` cultural practices.