Talking Machine

Rethinking Theory

2007-08-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

These days, there happens frequently a debate revolving around the end of theory; the conclusion seems habitually reduced to the slogan such as "back to the something," or "return to somewhere."

In a Korean academic field, in particular, English literary studies, there has been a wide phenomenon showing an uncomfortable feeling against the introduction of theories into a textual reading; to some extent, it is related to the way in which "traditional" nationalism reshapes its own discourse in terms of postcolonialism in Korea, because theory has been considered something imported from American academic institution. The antipathy towards theoretical methods in analyzing literary texts does not merely belong to Korean academic sphere, but rather a long lasting history in British-American literary studies. Therefore, it is not unusual to observe the anti-theoretucal mentality among Korean scholars.

Theory has normally been a reflective thought by which one can see another aspect of a literary or cultural text. In this way, theory is easily set on the opposite side to practical criticism. Contrary to the preconception, no single criticism can come to exist without a theoretical perspective. Theory paves the way in which criticism sets its own critical position by reformulating a theoretical method.

This can be called the radicalization of conventional criticism depending on the habitual system of sensuousness. What is at stake is not the opposition between theory and criticism but rather the interwoven structure between those; the problem is not so much the abuse of theoretical conceptions when analyzing literary and cultural texts as the impotence of theoretical intervention into literary and cultural contexts. In other words, rethinking theory is nothing less than an attempt to re-establish the critical field through which one can see the way stepping out of the iron cage of late capitalism.

English

2007-07-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

English is for me a ladder on which I can get to the outside of the place where I have been stuck to. Writing and speaking in English, I find out another myself that is not constructed by so-called "habitus." English is not a language for me, but rather a way in which I can bring on my own "desert island."

Desire

2007-02-02T18:26:00.000-08:00

According to Lacan, crucial is that we should not give up desire towards objet petit a; desire is the first step for reshaping the way in which we want something. Deleuze calls this the practice to change the assemblage of desire. In fact, desire works beneath consciousness; nobody can controll it, but desire always leads us to deviant directions to which the conflicting parts of a body paves the way. Lacan argues that the parts of a body desire something different in each. It is interesting that Lacan puts emphasis on the confliction that opens the field of possibility, the one like champ in Bourdieu's terms. The field is an abstract space forcing the habit of perception to be shocked by the real -- this is the typical way of surrealist performance. I think there might be deeper connection between surrealism and the Lacanian concept of desire.

Alain Badiou's Concept of Subject

2006-04-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

Badiou seems to say that his theory of subject is not necessarily different from what Deleuze argues. Yet, he tacitly reveals that his aim is to complete Deleuze's unfinished proejct, a project for combining desire and subject in terms of the avant-gardist aesthetic.

The Harmony Silk Factory

2006-01-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

Tash Aw, the author of this novel, was born in Taipei and brought up in Malaysia, is now living in London. The novel shows the way in which a Chinese-Malaysian called Johnny, actually narrator's father in the story, destroyed everything relevant to him. I started this novel when visiting Malaysia in January. Tim recommended me to read it; his choice was right on my interests in history.

The author is a good storyteller putting a fluent rhetoric out of the real Malaysian history by adapting Borges's tactic blurring between the real and the fictional. It seems to enhance reality in the narrator's statements, but actually, at the same time, fantasize history. This is one of the most interesting aspects shown in global cultural production since 1990s: reinventing historical events. This leads to the pseudo-historicity of the past, the pleasure principle of popular culture, the principle that we want to believe to be exist, not the true representation of the given.

In this way, the author does not seem to succeed in making a round characteristic of Johnny: all of sudden he turns out to be an absolute evil-like man without proper reason. By this, the whole story of history is easily transformed to fantasy, which cannot be discriminated from reality. The confusion of the boundary between reality and fiction is said a wide phenomenon of post-modern society, however it seems different in Malaysian culture; Malaysia has always already been post-modern since the colonial age. This reality allows Tash Aw's novel such unreal reality. In Asia, reality is fantastic than fantasy.

Come Back

2006-01-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

Quite a time been away, but now I changed my mind to go on writing for this blog. To write here might be a monologue -- who cares? Life is such a dramatic scene never peformed again. I have been up to for doing that. Nothing happened more than before. Don't blame me too pessimistic. My experience does not allow me to do better. I am going to stay here. If something floods me, it will change me further.

Benjamin's Concept of Magic

2004-05-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

Benjamin's concept of magic is one of the most significant notions which is often misunderstood by many readers. There is no doubt that the concept is easily used to enhance the mysterious aura of Benjamin's philosophy.

However, Benjamin's concept of magic is nothing less than the way in which he articulates the theory of Darstellung, the embodiment of the real, against Hegelian formulation of Vorstellung; his concept is designed to work out the "reflection without mediation."

More significantly, Benjamin adapts the Romantic idea of reflection, and transforms it into the idea that reflection is equivalent to thinking, or, better still, the systemic effect of language. In this way Benjamin's concept of magic anticipates the linguistic turn whereby Western philosophy revolutionary changes its own fundamental framework.

Reading Benjamin

2004-05-24T11:39:00.000-07:00

Reading Benjamin is to understand how the new idea of something comes out of the old one. Benjamin calls this as the construction of tradition.

Tradition is not only the conventional system repressing the "newness", but also the host of the novelty. Actually, Benjamin's theoretical methodology is well observed in the modern fashion system. Is this irony or not?

Yes. This is nothing less than the ironic mechanism whereby the reactionary politics gives rise to the revolutionary acitivity, let alone the new comes out of the old. Benjamin witnesses the paradoxical tendency as the aspect of modernity.

As is well known, Benjamin's style is the embodiment of this contradictory modernity. Reading Benjamin means the ironic work to understand the complex reality of modernity in a way that the partial reality is reflected in the fragmental figuration, the place of poetic imagination. This is the very form which Benjamin's idea of the aesthetic takes.

As it begins

2004-05-24T02:15:00.000-07:00

Today, I open this talking-machine, talking to another myself or other-selves. I don't know what will be shown here -- everything is not mystery, but something real coming out of my immanence. There is no criterion for the way in which my talking-machine works. Talking-machine is just a machine, but not using my mouth-machine. Is this weird? No. Thinking is a source of energy operating the machine. This is the way to entertain myself properly.