2018 Oct 6 (Sat)
14:00 ~ 16:00

Ogin-dong 34-1

Cities and Letters:  What do cityscapes mean?

The metropolis is filled with letters such as overflowing signboards and neon signs. Capital cities with splendid scenery contribute to capital accumulation as well as the physical and architectural environment through the production and consumption of symbolic landscapes. Furthermore, the landscape of the city itself is interpreted as a text, a symbol reflecting the economy, politics, and social culture of past history. Also, the change of material and symbolic landscape through urban regeneration shows not just the maintenance or restoration of the past scenery, but how the current power and the capital are working.

by Byung-doo Choi

He received a bachelor's and a master’s degree from Seoul National University and earned his PhD in Leeds University, UK in geography. He is currently working as a professor of Geography Education at Daegu University and a chief director of Korea Urban Institute. He investigates criticism and alternatives with an interest in the spatial environment of the capitalist city. His recent books include Transnational Migration and Geography of Hospitality, Urban Regeneration and Gentrification, and New Horizons in Human Geography. David Harvey's Eyes on the World and Citizenship: Geography of Freedom and Liberation are in his translations.

Script, Novel and Desire:  Dialectic of Writing,  Reading and Becoming

Could 'character' change a person’s life? Thomas Hardy's last novel, Jude the Obscure (1895), is about a story of a mason who takes his entire life on characters. Jude, who reads and engraves letters, however, is denied momentarily when he tries to enter the world of the characters, and his life falls into the bottomless pit. We do not have 'Jude' any more in this era, but we are also tied to the characters. Would the characters in the SNS world such as kakaotalk, facebook, and twitter be different from the characters that Jude dreamt? Or would they be the same? This lecture will take Jude the Obscure as a gateway to examine the relationship among modernity, modern novels, and characters, and, stepping further, to think about the deep relationship between our culture and characters through the culture of the SNS era.

by Hyong-jun Moon

Cultural critic. He received his PhD in English Literature at University of Wisconsin (Milwaukee). He wrote In the Realm of the Senses, Revolution will not be televised, Topography of Catastrophe, and Will we be happy if we are good at English. He translated The Task of the Critic: Terry Eagleton in Dialogue, Fanaticism, People who have won power, and etc. He teaches in the English literature department of Chung-Ang University and is making quarterly magazine as editorial committee of Munhakdongne.