Jaecheol Kim

Using immersive virtual reality (VR), this study examined the D/H ratio principle (where "D" means the depth or width of a public space and "H" means the height of its surrounding buildings.) that urban design theorists have suggested as an important design principle for public spaces. The authors built VR models of eight enclosed urban public squares with different D/H ratios ranging from 1/3 to 6/1. They then carried out an experiment in the form of a visual assessment survey using the VR mode

Though several studies have explored the ways in which people perceive the qualities of urban squares, the influence of living environments on such perceptions has received little attention. To fill this gap, this study examined differences in preferences for urban square design elements, particularly, the ratio of the width of a public space to the height of the surrounding buildings (D/H ratio), square size, and façade details, among people with different living environments. Virtual reality s

This study aims to examine the gender gaps in the use of urban space in Seoul, Korea, to provide empirical evidence for urban planning for gender equality. We analyzed daily temporary populations that were estimated using mobile phone data. We used the total, women’s, and men’s temporary populations as well as the subtraction of the temporary population of men from that of women (SMW) as dependent variables. We first conducted a visual analysis on temporary population density using kernel densit

This study examines the dominance of the D/H ratio as a design element for an enclosed urban square, long claimed by numerous urban designers. It claims that like the D/H ratio, other design elements significantly affect the perceptual quality of an enclosed square, but their impacts differ according to the context in which they are applied. The study reviews the literature pertaining to enclosures as an urban design strategy and design elements for an enclosed urban square. Then it presents a c

The primary purpose of this essay is to survey the recent zombie craze in Northeast Asian films from Japan and South Korea. While the concept of the zombie may have originated in colonial Haiti, with its ghoulish images and supernatural lore, zombies were later imported to North America and reformulated as popular cultural entertainment by Hollywood. They are now flourishing in an East Asian cinematic context preserved in a globalized form. The films under investigation – I Am a Hero and Train t

This article explores the application of innovation–diffusion theory to tactical urbanism projects. The objective of the study is to comprehend how innovation–diffusion theory can be utilized to analyze and evaluate these projects and identify the factors contributing to their success. The research was conducted through a collaborative design studio experience, using qualitative methods that largely depended on participatory observations and interviews with key participants. The findings indicat

Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville’s Gorboduc metaphorizes the nation’s divide into North and South as a fratricidal feud. The narrative allegorically represents the southern English prejudice against the northern territory above the Humber. This provincial community had a shifting allegiance to the English Crown, and it was also against the unified juridical sovereignty and the Reformation propagated by the Tudor nation-state. This essay focuses on the effects of Gorboduc’ s reissue in 1570 by

The Plague and Immunity in Othello Jaecheol Kim (bio) Amiasma of plague hangs around Shakespeare's dramatic corpus, and Othello is a topical response to its occasional outbreak in 1603. Inevitably, its textual body is not only a palimpsest of traces recording epidemic outbreaks, but it is also a field of politico-clinical discourses that attempt to govern, quarantine, and direct the disease toward certain controllable ways. In other words, Othello is a representation of the rise of modern medica

This essay surveys William Shakespeare’s Richard III in terms of the early modern construction of the north-south divide. Both modern and early modern historians view King Richard III as “England’s first and only northerner king,” and during his short-lived reign the north enjoyed a time of “colonialist dominion over the South.” In Richard III, Shakespeare engages directly with this form of colonial domination. Shakespeare’s depiction of Richard III’s rule projects a fear of the civilized south

Through a close reading of Shakespeare's King Lear, this essay surveys English nationalism in a very specific moment—at the time of King James's accession and his propagation of the Union of kingdoms, which was soon followed by his edict of “Naturalization of the Scots”. This political claim of the Scottish monarch was in conflict with his English subjects' allegiance to English nationhood, thus creating an ambiguous allegiance between the two. Shakespeare, as James's English subject, had to neg

In the planning process, it is crucial to involve every key stakeholder for effective collaborative participation. However, in real-world practice, planners often face difficulties engaging stakeholders who remain passive. The authors argue that the Delphi method, when modified to enhance planners’ roles as a communication channel, can bridge this gap, serving as a tool to facilitate communication with these passive stakeholders and fostering consensus between those who actively voice their opin

The primary purpose of this essay is to analyze Thomas More’s Utopia in terms of biopolitics and governmentality that Michel Foucault theorized in his lectures at Collège de France. More’s story of an imaginary commonwealth is an illustration of early modern pastoral power that foreshadows the rise of (early) modern “governmentality.” Pastoral power as a sort of governing technology claimed that people should be governed just as Christ as an ideal pastor governs his flock (Christian subjects), a

This essay analyzes Howard Jacobson’s Shylock Is My Name in light of theoretical debates on Paul the Apostle between Alain Badiou and Giorgio Agamben. Badiou argues that with his debate on the Jewish laws Paul tackled the exclusive Jewish identity by creating a radical universality. However, like Agamben, Jacobson emphasizes that Paul’s theology does not resolve the irreducible differences that reside in Jewish identity, along with the Jews’ own right to exist in their own distinctive ways.

The Paracelsan Philosophy and Plot in Romeo and Juliet Jaecheol Kim (bio) Shakespeare, Paracelsus, and the Early Modern Medical Turn Disease is often communicated through language, and the trajectory of contagion is coterminous with its discursive orbit. Early modern dramatic works, especially the plays of Shakespeare, pay keen attention to the linguistic matrix of disease.1 Shakespeare lived during a time of important shifts in the history of medicine and disease, when leprosy gradually receded