Unreading multilingualisms of the Korean diaspora
2013-07
Loading...
View/Download File
Persistent link to this item
Statistics
View StatisticsJournal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Title
Unreading multilingualisms of the Korean diaspora
Authors
Published Date
2013-07
Publisher
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
Abstract
This project critiques the impulse to read literature and culture of the Korean diaspora as representative of individual(s), culture(s), or community(ies), and the long-standing focus on what difference looks like. Each of my primary texts has been written or performed by Korean diasporic women in the past three decades. My primary materials also include both Korean and English, and most include a third or even a fourth language. While still attending to visual reading practices, my project privileges the sound of difference. I attend to how these different sounds are represented on the printed page, the cinematic screen, and the theatre stage. Each of these genres and media allows multilinguality to be expressed in different and very specific ways.
My methodology consists of "unreading" contemporary texts. By unreading, I mean the practice of disrupting and deconstructing more dominant languages, vocabularies, and reading practices, guided by Rey Chow's discussion of "unlearning" and Kandice Chuh's work on deconstructing the "Asian American subject." With this approach, I investigate how relations of power are represented in cultural productions. I begin with a discussion of the modernization and democratization of the Korean language, particularly during the period of Japanese colonization. It is within this context that I read the historical traces that emerge in the language(s) of contemporary works. I then consider the grammatical, social, political, and cultural implications of eliciting a specific Western-derived first-person singular subject from a more (potentially deliberately) ambiguous Korean context. In the second half of this project, I turn to the media of film and television to argue that historical traces of the phenomena of early cinema, particularly during Korea's colonial period inform the translation and communication technologies featured in contemporary films of the Korean diaspora. The layering of subtitling in noraebang scenes enacts a doubling of both screens and subtitles, introducing rich layers of textuality while recalling the titles of early cinema. I conclude by considering the specific contributions of this project to the field of Asian American studies.
Description
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. July 2013. Major: English. Advisor: Josephine Lee. 1 computer file (PDF); iii, 230 pages.
Related to
Replaces
License
Collections
Series/Report Number
Funding information
Isbn identifier
Doi identifier
Previously Published Citation
Suggested citation
Kim, Eun Joo. (2013). Unreading multilingualisms of the Korean diaspora. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy, https://hdl.handle.net/11299/158550.
Content distributed via the University Digital Conservancy may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor. By using these files, users agree to the Terms of Use. Materials in the UDC may contain content that is disturbing and/or harmful. For more information, please see our statement on harmful content in digital repositories.