Kim Uchang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kim Uchang | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 December 1937 |
| Language | Korean |
| Nationality | South Korean |
| Korean name | |
| Hangul | 김우창 |
| Hanja | 金禹昌 |
| RR | Gim Uchang |
| MR | Kim Uch'ang |
Kim Uchang (Korean: 김우창, born 17 December 1937) is a South Korean literary critic and scholar of English literature.[1][2] He is known for his arguments on building a rational society based on “aesthetic rationality” and moving beyond the dichotomy of conservatism and liberalism, modernism and post-modernism, nationalism and globalism, and literature as an ideology to empower the masses and literature as an art free of any political context.[3]
Kim Uchang was born in Hampyeong County, South Korea in 1937. He graduated Seoul National University in 1958 with a degree in English literature, and earned his doctoral degree at Harvard University in 1975.[4] He published his first critical essay "The Example of T. S. Eliot" in the magazine Cheongmaek (청맥) in 1965. He taught English literature at Seoul National University from 1963 to 1974 and at Korea University from 1974 to 2003. He holds an endowed chair at Ewha Womans University.[5]
Career
Kim Uchang’s criticism focuses on how people can reclaim their humanity in a modern capitalist society. He defines “modern era” as the age in which people lose their humanity and human rationality is suppressed, undermined, and turned into a tool, due to the separation of individual agency from the operation of society. According to Kim, quality literature can be produced when society and the individual, or universality and individuality, merges dialectically. He argues that literature can help overcome the divide or discord between society and the individual. He views literature as a bridge between the two that can restore humanity.[6]
Kim thus judges a literary work based on how successfully it brings together society and the individual. He uses the concept “specific universality” as his judging criteria and argues that specific universality can be achieved through “aesthetic rationality.” According to the argument, the absence of rationality in South Korea’s modern history comes from an extreme dichotomy of ideologies.[7] His aesthetic rationality integrates the divided concepts of literature as an ideology to empower the masses and literature as an art free of any political context.[7] This is why Kim often emphasizes the universality of rationality. Universality derives from the ability to impartially observe life and reality. Having a universal perspective based on flexible and holistic rationality is far from making judgments mechanically. A person’s awareness of their potential for universality is what saves them from reality and connects them to it. Kim sees rationality as “the best means to perceive the marvels of the physical world or lifeworld.”[8]
He established the criteria for evaluation on creative works that internalize conflict and intelligence by confronting social reality through expression. As a result of synthesizing and analyzing the binary oppositions of technique-theme, subjectivity-objectivity, and self-reality, he proposed structural weaknesses and potential of Korean poetry.
Kim is the founding member of Literatures of the World (세계의 문학), a quarterly magazine published by Minumsa publishing group (민음사). He is also a member of the National Academy of Arts, Republic of Korea (대한민국예술원). In 2000, he served as the president of the organizing committee for the 1st Seoul International Literature Forum for Literature (서울국제문학포럼).[9] In 2004, he served as the organizer of the Frankfurt International Book Fair.
Kim won the 1981 Seoul Culture and Arts Award for Best Criticism, the 2003 Green Stripes Order of Service Merit, and the 2005 19th Inchon Award for Humanities and Literature.
