Course Description:
“A feeling of unresolved resentment against injustices suffered, a sense of helplessness because of the overwhelming odds against one, a feeling of acute pain in one’s guts and bowels, making the whole body writhe and squirm, and an obstinate urge to take revenge and to right the wrong—all these combined.” — Suh Nam-dong
Students in this course will explore the unique emotional identity and Korean concept of “han” as it manifests in experimental texts by Korean & Korean-American authors. Looking closely at the relationship of cultural history & identity and aesthetics & narrative, students will explore how the presence of unresolved corporeal history and the impossibility of articulation or expression leads to new encounters in language and narrative via experimental writing practices. Texts will look at how emotions like “han” relate to themes of authenticity, historical accuracy, individual subjectivity, and lived/embodied experience. Questions will include how history and accuracy intersect in individual creative work, how emotional and real violence intersect with aesthetic contradiction, how the limits and failures of language allow for reaching beyond traditional narrative structures, and how lived experience intersects with individual identity. Students will look at both creative and critical texts, and work in a collaborative atmosphere by participating in discussion, exploring concepts of failure and inarticulation in their own creative writing practices, and thinking critically around relationships between history, individual, and language.
Class Readings & Texts:
What is han?
- “Han” by Dennis “Denizen Kane” Kim
- Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown (Season 1, Episode 2: Los Angeles Koreatown)
- “A complex feeling tugs at Koreans” by John M. Glionna (Los Angeles Times)
- “Home Is Where the Han Is: A Korean American Perspective on the Los Angeles Upheavals” by Elaine H. Kim (Social Justice)
- “Korean Sources of Conflict Resolution: An Inquiry into the Concept of Han” by Roland Bleiker and Hoang Young-ju (Mediating Across Difference: Oceanic and Asian Approaches to Conflict Resolution)
- “That Other School Shooting: Should It Matter That the Shooter at Oikos University Was Korean?” by Jay Caspian Kang (NY Times)
- The West Wing (Season 5, Episode 4: Han)
Initial Encounters
- East Goes West by Younghill Kang
- “Wings” by Yi Sang (Modern Korean Fiction, An Anthology)
- The Martyred by Richard E. Kim
- Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Contemporary Korean Poetry in Translation
- Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers by Kim Hyesoon (translated by Don Mee Choi)
- Cheer Up, Femme Fatale by Kim Yideum (translated by Ji yoon Lee)
- “Cheolsu” by Bae Suah (translated by Sora Kim-Russell)
- I Am a Season That Does Not Exist by Kim Kyung Ju (translated by Jake Levine)
- WRITING PROMPT: Reflecting on animals, colors, & detritus as core images.
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang
Myung Mi Kim
- Commons by Myung Mi Kim
- “Generosity as Method: An Interview with Myung Mi Kim” by Yedda Morrison (EPC)
- “Into motions and relations: Metonic Cycles with Myun Mi Kim” by Sueyeun Juliette Lee (Jacket2)
- “Interpolation, Coherence, History: The Works of Myung Mi Kim” by Sarah Dowling (Nests and Strangers: On Asian American Women Poets, Edited by Timothy Yu)
Experimental Korean-American Poetry by Women
- Solar Maximum by Sueyeun Juliette Lee
- Hardly War by Don Mee Choi
- The Morning News Is Exciting by Don Mee Choi
- “Womb 8691945” by Don Mee Choi (The Volta)
- “Darkness-Translation-Migration” by Don Mee Choi (Poetry Foundation)
- Foreigner’s Folly: A Tale of Attempted Project by Jiyoon Lee
Inherited Traumas
- Abductions by Chiwan Choi
- “Why I’m North Korean” by Joseph Han (Entropy)
- “What Remains” by Helen Kim
- Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, & the Forgotten War by Grace M. Cho
On Failure
- Peppermint Candy, Dir. Lee Chang-dong (1999)
- “Lee Chang-dong” Director Profile (Senses of Cinema)
- Poetry, Dir. Lee Chang-dong (2010)
- Bhanu Kapil’s Goddard College MFAW Commencement Speech
Optional Films For Further Watching:
- Seoul Searching, Dir. Benson Lee (2016)
- Troublers, Dir. Lee Young (2015)
- Mudang: Reconciliation Between the Living and the Dead, Dir. Park Ki-bok (2002)
- Secret Sunshine, Dir. Lee Chang-dong (2007)
- Bad Guy, Dir. Kim Kiduk (2001)
- Mother, Dir. Bong Joon-ho (2009)
- Train to Busan, Dir. Yeon Sang-ho (2016)
- Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women, Dir. Dai Sil Kim-Gibson (2000)
