This research aims to elucidate what modern sciences paired with a naive progressivism have brought about by focusing on sundry representations in the literature and culture of the colonial period of modern Korea which, as the most powerful idolatry i ...
This research aims to elucidate what modern sciences paired with a naive progressivism have brought about by focusing on sundry representations in the literature and culture of the colonial period of modern Korea which, as the most powerful idolatry in modern world, scientific ideology has given rise to. Given the withering tendency in the field of science-technology that is all the more recoiling from the reaction of the stubborn tradition, such an attempt we dared in this work is worth being called originary and new for it can provide us with buffers against the shock caused by modernity.
We divided into three teams according to subthemes in order to proceed our investigation more efficiently. The first team with the title of “cultural history of science” is tasked to follow the process of transmission and translation of the concept of science and to reconstruct the history in which it has gained the almost absolute authority enjoying support from the bureaucratic system of the Japanese Government-General of Korea. . Another task the second team takes is, under the title of “culturalisation of science,” to examine concrete realities of the history where literature and science are intermingled. The last team, by contrast, has as their mission to take account of “scientification of literature,” by singling out the struggle literature showed to become another science.
The divergent efforts conducted by all three teams, however, converge on an end that is to write another history of literature, history that (the study of) literature tended to become a Wissenschaft. In doing so, we show the conspiratorial relation of scientific ideology represented in literature with imperialism, nationalism, and capitalism.
Report on the first year
Hwang Jongyon, director of all three teams, demonstrates that the revolutionary achievements LeeGwangsu represented during 1910s are to a great extent indebted to the scientific turn of that time. Paying attention to the influence of the thoughts of Darwin and Haeckel on LeeGwangsu’s works he points out the moment at which in their ambivalent relation to science they can be read as manifestation of the disenchanted world.
Suh Heewon describes the characteristics of pursuit of scientific knowledge leeGwangsu’s works reveal in terms of the progressive perspective on history. Furthermore, he singles out the economic motivations that lie at the center of LeeGwangsu’s project.
Yi Soohyung attempts to reread LeeGwangsu’s works by juxtaposing the scientific terms with literary ones. In his view, LeeGwangsu took the cue from the discourses on affection and sentiments that surfaced in 1910.
Lee Chulho, from quite different angle than Suh Heewon and Yi Soohyung, finds another facet of LeeGwangsu in his works that hint that he may have well known the meaning of psychological studies on time Henri Bergson and William James respectively launched. Against the settled interpretation on the crucial aspect inLeeGwangsu’s writing influenced by the “stream of consciousness” of western modernism Lee Chulho sets another link up, a link that finds itself in the philosophical discourses of early twentieth century.
Finding the point of departure in the legends of Dangun, Jeong Jonghyun claims that in the context of Joseon Studies the concept of science was nothing other than a synecdoche of all struggles to render the historical experiences of the people in Chosun dynasty universalizable, if not universal. In line with such a remapping of the discourses, he asserts the deficiencies of the way of understanding Korean history that tends to highlight contrast between positivistic perspective and Marxist one.
Cha Seungki takes note of the common ground that modernism and Marxism share, that is, that both search for reality, which is vulnerable to invasion of strict methods of science. It should be stated here that Cha Seungki offers a plausible account of the process that, due to fascistic movement, yearning for scientific knowledge fell prey to the instrumental use of reason. His research tellingly confirms the truism that science is Janus-faced.
Han Minju leads us to think the complicated relation between science and culture, between technology and discipline, in term of gender. Sundries of discourse that targeted at production of women as backup sources for war are interpreted as an industry of supplementation. She believes that there must be some linkage between the theory of “mutual aid,” which belong to fashionable discourses of the period, and the conception of “technocracy.”
We have published a book, “Literature and Science: Nature, Civilization, War,” in which all of these studies are included along with some other articles written by those who participated in the conference we held.
Report on the second year
Hwang Jongyon gives a full detail of the figures in a novel-like work “Love and Sin,” figures that dramatize the colonial anarchism or anticolonialism. What he finds as a crucial point in Yom Sangsob who trained himself by virtue of Darwinism and naturalism in order to adjust to secularized world, is the egoism of Max Stirner. The key problem in “Love and Sin,” according to him, hinges on how to find the resistance of youth who only obey the voice of his own inwardness defying socialist solidarity, international cooperation, and inevitable restriction of physical reality.
Suh Heewon tries to lay bare the fact that pathological knowledge lies at the root of modern Korean novels illustrating the falling associated with syphilis in “탁류.”
Yi Soohyung, relying on the presupposition of the supremacy of pathological knowledge about sex, renders the interdependence between ‘nerve’ and ‘narrative’ useful to read modern Korean novels.
That shamanism, once considered a mere superstition, reemerged after the birth of new novel, draws attention from Lee Chulho. As seen in terms of return of the suppressed in the case of Lee Haejo, and in terms of overcoming Occidental modernity in Kim Dongni, he emphasizes, shamanism as the Other of scientific worldview has been taking a privileged status in the imaginary of Korean people.
Jeong Jonghyun raises an objection against the attempts to attribute the achievements of U Jang-chun , a doctor of agriculture, to patriotism, for U Jang-chun was in point of fact deeply involved with both Japanese imperialists and overlords of newly liberated Korea. In his assertions it is implied that idolatrizing of great scientists cannot but foster political hegemony.
A newly rising tycoon of Japan, the Nippon Nitrogen Fertilizer Co. Ltd, comes to the fore in what Cha Seungki’s research has conducted. He argues that the Nippon Nitrogen Fertilizer Co. Ltd could establish itself in cooperation with colonial government. As an epiphenomenon of it, the city Heungnam was founded as a proper city with being equipped with fortress-like factories. Some short stories of Lee Buk-myeong , which are published before and after of defeat of Japan, according to Cha Seungki, offer some thread to reconsider the trinity of technology-capitalism-state.
It is objectivism, Huh byungshik claims, that Western science has transplanted in modern Korean literature. We are not in ignorance of its aftermath. He goes on to say that it is necessary to eliminate the remnants of that old-fashioned prejudice if we take into account the development of philosophy of science.
Han Minju analyzes the protocol of teaching science in elementary schools of the period of Japanese imperialism. She pinpoints the equivocal function of science education to set in motion the fashion of vulgar scientific application, that is, magic, and to oppress it by means of propagandizing of scientific spirit. Teaching science, she asserts, contributed to producing subject who are hardly dubious of illusion given by state.
We published a second volume with title “Literature and Science: Race, Magic, State” which consists of 14 articles. On the top of that, as planned from the very beginning, one of the assistant researcher has completed his own dissertation by virtue of this project.
Report on third year
Yi Soohyung gives attention to the culture of consumption in 1930. What he sees in the culture is the postcolonial aspect of consuming. He argues that, apart from the materialistic perspective, consumption culture is relevant to the problematic of taste.
By reexamining the statistical practice of Japanese government Han Minju reveals the way of appropriation it uses. This works should be considered a building block for further research with respect to the political implication of statistics.
6 articles of our teams, including one of the director, are waiting for the verdict of the reviewers. We also expect to see the publication of the third volume of our research, with a tentative title “Literature and Science: Man, Spirit, Universe.”