Hyungseob Lee

Close Encounters of Postmodern Epistemology and Postcolonial Narrative in Michael Haneke’s CachéThis paper looks into the problem of spectatorship manifest in Michael Haneke’s film, Caché (2005). Haneke’s constant destabilization and displacement of images regarding their epistemological status and in terms of both time and space render the spectator extremely helpless in attempting to arrive at the film’s meanings, however ambiguous and indeterminate they may have been intended by the director.

This paper probes into the multi-layered nature of Brian Friel’s relationship with W. B. Yeats. First, I look into a rare occasion in which Friel makes direct reference to Yeats’ text, in The Loves of Cass McGuire. Second, I focus on both writers’ dramatic treatment of the same historical event in Cathleen ni Houlihan and Translations, discussing what they share in common and how they differ from each other. Finally, I analyze the role and meaning of the big house in Friel’s Aristocrats, seeing

In this paper, I propose to see Making History as a play which, in the course of dissecting the conflicting views of history that have had divisive and alienating effects on the Irish people in both the south and the north, ultimately rejects the self-claim of historiography to our access to the past. Another important thematic feature of the play centers on the hybridized nature of Irish identity and how it comes to be suppressed and homogenized by the discourse of the nation. The discourse of

This paper focuses on the problems of binary thinking found in Beckett studies: the binary of Europe and Ireland and its concomitant binary of the modern and traditional. After briefly outlining the genealogy of the Irish-or-European Beckett criticism, I suggest three fields of research (Beckett’s relationship with the Irish Literary Revival, the problem of Irishness and the Irish context of modernism/ modernity) in which the binary opposition of Europe and Ireland and of modernity and tradition

This work was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University (HY-2013-N). An early version of this paper was presented at 2013 International Conference on “W. B. Yeats, T. S. Eliot, and Modern and Contemporary Poets and Writers” held in May 2013 at Hanyang University, Seoul.

Critical responses to Brian Friel’s Translations have largely focused on its political implications and undertones. Although the playwright has acknowledged that no contemporary Irish play can escape from its political context, he has also remarked that his overriding concern in the play is to explore “the dark and private places of individual souls.” The dramatic truth that the playwright aspires to should be private in nature. At the same time, the predicaments of private lives are seen throug

Post-Troubles theatre in Northern Ireland has witnessed theatrical projects that push Belfast beyond its unenviable position as the predominant spatial imaginary of the Northern Ireland conflict. Informed by Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault, this paper analyzes the spatialization of the everyday in post-Troubles Belfast in Scenes from the Big Picture (2003) by Belfast playwright Owen McCafferty. McCafferty prioritizes the ordinary over the traumatic. His dramatic project consists in re-imag

The paper reconsiders the nature of the relationship between two poetic dictions — nostalgia and protest — in Oliver Goldsmith’s poem, The Deserted Village. Critical debates on the poem have been formed around the double nexus of the English/Irish identity of its locale and the modern/anti-modern poetic diction. After examining several aspects of the debates, the paper proposes an alternative way of reading the poem by introducing Michel Foucault’s notion

In this paper, I propose to see Making History as a play which, in the course of dissecting the conflicting views of history that have had divisive and alienating effects on the Irish people in both the south and the north, ultimately rejects the self-claim of historiography to our access to the past. Another important thematic feature of the play centers on the hybridized nature of Irish identity and how it comes to be suppressed and homogenized by the discourse of the nation. The discourse of

Three concerns come together to form the major argument of this essay. First, American suburbia as the locus and reservoir of post-war American values, ideals and desires has been variously conceptualized, elaborated and problematized by scholars of various disciplines. Second, Edward Albee has focused on the (re)presentation of American suburbia throughout his career. His radical experimentations with dramatic form as well as his thematic concerns do not lend support to a widely held view of hi

Film and literature are two different art forms, each with its own narrative strategies and techniques, and we have to ask different questions to...

From its beginning, the Abbey theatre thrived on the tension between its two ideals that were difficult to reconcile: its desire for poetic beauty and its need for representational veracity. It is well-known that Yeats had a strong aversion to naturalism (a disenchanted analytical version of realism popular in his time), equating it with the art form for the self-complacent and morally bankrupt middle classes. In this, he was not only aesthetically motivated but driven by a political and cultura