A Brave New World? : New Frontiers and Challenges for English Studies in Taiwan

Feng, Pin-chia Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2007 Journal of English and American studies Vol.6 No.-

In this paper I will first briefly introduce the institution of the English department or waiwenxi (department of foreign languages) in Taiwan, using the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature of National Taiwan University as an example. Through this introduction I hope to contextualize English studies in Taiwan before I move on to the discussion of the “new frontiers” of English studies on the island, which include the study of multicultural and multiethnic American literatures, new literatures in English, diaspora studies, and cultural studies. These new frontiers of study in turn create new challenges for English professionals in the new millennium. In my discussion, the multicultural and multiethnic turn of American literary studies will be used to exemplify the disciplinary remapping that is taking place in Taiwan. In addition, I will also highlight how literary studies is seriously challenged by language education as more and more departments of Applied English are established to meet the demand of global English education. My paper will be followed by a PowerPoint presentation of the current state of English studies in Taiwan.

Networking the English Departments in Asia : What EPASIA Can Do

Park, Chankil Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2007 Journal of English and American studies Vol.6 No.-

When we self-consciously examine the public roles as scholars of English Studies in the Asian context, we have to admit that we are, most of all, translators. We translate, annotate, and explicate the Western classics in English. Our translation is not simply a linguistic transfer from English to our vernacular languages or vice versa, but a cultural translation as well. Translation is not a mechanical process. The final result of the translating process is contingent upon for whom and why that translation is taking place. Translation is inevitably a process of approximation. But if the approximation was motivated by a political intention to sustain a colonial rule, translation is no more a matter of academic debate, but a political issue in itself. Being a translator of a culture, therefore, cannot be an innocent job: We have to decide politically on which side we locate ourselves, those who translate or those who are translated, the colonizer or the colonized. WWW is a new infrastructure where we can participate in the academic communities of English Studies more on an equal footing with Western scholars. First of all, the WWW’s environment and recent IT innovations have made an enormous improvement in the availability of primary and secondary materials. But what is more exciting to us is the new type of academic collaboration the WWW environment has made possible. The Website EPASIA is the very first step we have taken to materialize our professional ambition to make a “networked global partnership” in cyberspace among Asian scholars of English Studies. EPASIA is a multi-purpose academic portal site exclusively for English Studies developed by myself and nine doctoral students of my department. It is an ongoing project, still in the middle of its making, waiting for the contributions from our future partners in other Asian countries. EPASIA’s main features are as follows. a. Global Scope: EPASIA is an Academic Portal Site specialized in English Studies, which was, of course, inspired by Alan Liu’s Voice of the Shuttle. Whereas VOS is a comprehensive portal covering all subjects in the humanities and social sciences, EPASIA is only for English Studies. What is unique about EPASIA, however, is its truly global scope; it covers not only Anglo-American regions (UK, US, Australia) but also many Asian countries such as China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, and Korea. b. Collaborative Networking: EPASIA is also an annotated Webliography (bibliography of academic web contents). EPASIA’s annotations are given by an open-ended, bilateral network of scholars and graduate students in Asia. The contents of EPASIA are thus uploaded and maintained by a networked community of students and scholars who best know the contents in their own professional fields. c. Digital Publishing & Archiving: EPASIA presents an international academic journal of English Studies, published both as a peer-reviewed e-journal and as a paper journal. Print or audio-visual materials produced through international conferences, workshops, and lecture series are collected and archived in the EPASIA database, and some of them are already provided to the general public. Digital mediations of local academic activities will also make Asian scholars a more significant presence in Western academic communities.

Englishness and the Domestic Woman : A Study on the Representation of Convents in Radcliffe’s The Italian

Bomi Woo Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2017 Journal of English and American studies Vol.15 No.2

The rise of English nationalism developed in the eighteenth century. Fueled by antipathy towards Catholic France and the French-dominated cosmopolitan culture of the English aristocracy, Protestantism established itself as one of the key factors in the formation of an English national identity. As opposed to an effete aristocracy, the middle class also came to represent itself as the true repository of true Englishness. It is within the context of the intersection between religion and nationalism in early modern England that this paper attempts to read Ann Radcliffe, a female writer whose religious views served as an important avenue for creative expression as well as the articulation of Englishness. Radcliffe’s The Italian depicts several religious institutions as important sites determining the action of the novel. Some Catholic institutions such as the Santa della Pieta convent is presented as cruel and tyrannical like the Inquisition, which represents the corrupted Roman Catholic faith. In contrast, there are enlightened religious institutions that seem to represent a modern Englishness. In particular, the contrast between the two convents of the San Stefano and Santa della Pieta allows Radcliffe to show what an enlightened feminine domesticity might look like as opposed to the cruelty and irrationality of an aristocratic and Catholic past. The Convent of Santa della Pieta where Ellena meets her mother depicts a utopian sororal community based on mutual trust and love. The Santa della Pieta convent can be read as Radcliffe’s radical and subversive perspective on women’s role in the family and nation. Radcliffe shows that the idea, or ideal, of the feminocentric domestic community best represents English middle-class ideology throughout nation and empire.

Catherine’s Enlightenment in Northanger Abbey as an English Woman with Subjecthood

Minjae Kim Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2020 Journal of English and American studies Vol.18 No.1

This paper focuses on reading the world of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey as a microcosm of England in the 18th century, and aims to trace how Catherine Morland as a disinhibited subject comes to be enlightened upon realizing that her behavior and mode of judgement that viewed the world blindly in terms of the dichotomy of good and evil pertaining to the imaginary world of the gothic was irrelevant, that “among the English... there was a general though unequal mixture of good and bad”(147). And in the process of coming to be enlightened as such, what Catherine also unwittingly carries out is to serve as the catalyst for Henry Tilney’s personal transformation. I argue that Henry’s change of heart testifies to the change that Catherine as a sincere subject with agency has evoked in the private sphere, the intimate sphere of the Tilney household- or Northanger Abbey that stands in the place of the British empire as the beacon of luxury and improvement. From the perspective that views Catherine not merely as an individual but as an English woman with subjecthood, her revelation is not only that of a personal nature but a social one, an observation of Austen’s that exposes both the ignorance of the previously unreformed Catherine and the vanity of the cosmopolitan General Tilney. Constant throughout the novel is Austen’s brand of irony and satire, rendering which side she takes in the equation ambiguous. Evaluating various characters situated at different points in the spectrum of English national identity and modern improvement, Austen’s work of parody and satire reaches the conclusion that each representation has its limits and vices.

The Use of English Tag Questions by Korean Learners and Native Speakers of English

Park, JeongHyun Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2007 Journal of English and American studies Vol.6 No.-

The purpose of this study was to compare the use of English tag questions by Korean learners and that by native speakers of English. It has been attempted to investigate whether Korean learners of English avoid using tag questions as well as whether the level of English proficiency or length of exposure to English influences the use of tag questions among Korean learners. In addition to the use of tag questions, the choice of semi-tag constructions between Korean learners and native speakers of English had been compared. As a result, several advanced-level learners among the total 12 seemed to avoid using tag questions while most low-level subjects showed the phenomenon of “ignorance” not “avoidance.” Furthermore, English proficiency level seemed to have an influence on the correct use of both tag and semi-tag questions. However, there was not such a big difference between the choice of semi-tag constructions by native speakers and that by Korean learners.

Engaging in the International Trade of Shakespeare Enterprise : Pedagogies Evolved in an NTU Classroom

Chiu, Chin-jung Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2010 Journal of English and American studies Vol.9 No.-

Shakespeare is probably the most read, studied, and performed single author in Asia. Across most of the globe, Shakespeare has been made a brand name. Shakespeare's manifold presence exerts a great influence both globally and locally. Being a well-embraced cultural commodity in the world, Shakespeare has functioned as a vehicle for accruing power, prestige, and cultural capital. The paper thus proposes to consider Shakespeare teaching practices in the university context. It first investigates how Shakespeare can be used for English language acquisition, especially as a vehicle for improving students' reading and writing. It then moves on to evaluate the use of Shakespeare for literature and culture learning in a college-level course. The paper is therefore a modest attempt to address the difficulties and rewards of integrating language and literature in second language (L2) settings. The paper concludes that, at a very minimal level, Shakespeare can be utilized in a four-skill program for university students as a way to learn English. At a more advanced level, however, Shakespeare can be used more profoundly to stimulate the love of learning English, encourage critical thinking skills and foster intellectual creativity .

Deterritorializing Translation in English Studies : A Deleuzian Thinking

Dai, Zhi-gang Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2010 Journal of English and American studies Vol.9 No.-

We have learned in our history of the relentless dichotomy of writer-as-creator and translator-as-scribe, as well as the myriad instances of describing translation as mere copy, shadow, and engraving of the original. In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that a "rhizome model," in its emphasis on movement, multiplicity and spatial organization, dynamically engages language in the context of translation and their interrelation, rather than fixing translation in an inevitable genealogy of the dominant model, which depends on maintaining a strict source/target binary. The rhizome model allows for a co-existence of several heterogeneous texts translated as part of a Deleuzian "difference in repetition." No texts have a fixed status in a mode of deterritorializing translation under such condition. In this paper, Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome model actively creates a deterritorialized space for bringing translation into a new plane in English studies.

“You Couldn’t Overcome the Hatreds of Countries or Race” : Color Consciousness and Pan-Asian Solidarity in Don Lee’s Yellow: Stories

Eugene Pae Ewha Institute fo English and American Studies 2015 Journal of English and American studies Vol.14 No.-

Scholarly discussions on Don Lee’s Yellow: Stories have been focused on how Lee’s first book opens a new possibility of Asian American literature. More specifically, scholars have been attentive to the ways in which Lee’s characters perform a non-stereotypical Asian American manners in the States. Unlike protagonists of former Asian American novels who struggle from the oppressed history of their ancestors, characters in Yellow: Stories seem to have been fully assimilated into American society. Don Lee is thus a writer who writes against any “generalizations about Asian Americans.” However, by elaborating everyday lives of these Asian American characters who seem to have successfully assimilated into the mainstream culture, Don Lee ironically emphasizes enduring racism and discriminations in present day America. Inter/Intra-racial relations of Asian American characters indicate that they are often marginalized as foreign existence. By suggesting that descriptions of Asian American characters’ ordinary lives rather functions as an emphasis on the daily discriminations of race they encounter, this paper aims to explore enduring color-conscious prejudice of American society and pan-Asian solidarity among Asian American characters in Don Lee’s Yellow: Stories.

Becoming a Lockean Individual as a Woman and Her Destined Failure, Roxana by Daniel Defoe

Choyeon Kim Ewha Institute fo English and American Studies 2016 Journal of English and American studies Vol.15 No.1

John Locke sets forth his concepts of property, individual, and the original contract in his Second Treatise of Government. Carole Pateman, in The Sexual Contract, asserts that the sexual contract constitutes the hidden counterpart of the original contract has been silenced in Lockean theory. Pateman makes the claim that the original contract between male and female in marriage institutes men’s freedom and women’s subjection. Mary Astell, in Reflections upon Marriage, contends that both sexes are equal before God but subjection is mandatory for the woman who enters into the matrimonial pact. The complex implications of these various arguments are closely examined in Daniel Defoe’s Roxana, the fortunate mistress, which offers a searing contemporary overview of the concepts of individuals, liberty, and property. Working from Pateman and Astell’s assertions, this paper aims to read Roxana by arguing that the freedom the female protagonist aspires to acquire is the freedom proclaimed for the Lockean concept of the individual. However, this paper also suggests that Roxana’s abject failure was destined since she entered the matrimonial contract. As an extension of Astell and Pateman’s argument, this paper tries to suggest how maternity becomes another bond hidden within the matrimonial pact. The wretched failure of the novel is in a sense predetermined because Roxana is constituted by a double sexual contract, wedlock and maternity.

Postcolonial Literary Strategies in John McGrath’s The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil and Derek Walcott’s “The Schooner Flight”

Lee, Hyun-Kyung Ewha Institute of English and American Studies 2009 Journal of English and American studies Vol.8 No.-

This paper attempts to illuminate how two writers John McGrath and Derek Walcott use literary techniques to decolonise the minds of audience/ readers in their works The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil and “The Schooner Flight” respectively. In his play The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil, John McGrath induces audience to have a critical awareness of the colonisation of Scottish Highland and other parts of the world through various techniques such as re-creating of historical figures and involving the audience in Highlanders’ colonising the Native Americans. Thus, McGrath confronts Scottish history of having been complicit in exploiting other parts of the world while acknowledging the historically marginalised status of the Scotland in the Britain. On the other hand, Derek Walcott draws the attention to the specific history of the Caribbean island that gained independence from the Britain in his narrative poem “The Schooner Flight”. Shabine, the narrator of the poem is of mixed heritage of the coloniser and the coloniser and finds himself belonging to the neither side. Through Shabine’s voice, Walcott criticises easy solution that offers “hybridity” as an answer to binarism. Instead, he makes it clear that the colonised can resist the colonial legacy though “careful mimicry” and appropriation of the master’s language for the benefit of the colonised.