tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85084740541860060212023-11-15T07:18:55.560-08:00백철Cristiana Baikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595340886201504217noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8508474054186006021.post-4295747894189669602010-02-08T17:55:00.000-08:002010-02-08T21:30:16.145-08:002.08.10<span style="font-size:100%;">Chul Baik (백철)</span> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Born in 1908, died in 1985</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Studied in Tokyo</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Professor of SNU at the department of Korean language and literature (1952~)</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Professor of Joongang University (1955~1973)</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Exchange professor at Yale and Stanford (1957)</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Wrote many books on Korean literature including History of Korean literature, Theory of Korean literature...</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">And called as Marxist in his times.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">If this information is right, I think I can introduce you to some SNU professor(s) who study and admire you grandfather.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:100%;">Reply to my email please.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"> * * *<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" ><br />This is a project that has been in the making for several years, one that I've discussed, loosely, with my sisters and close friends.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >The point of this blog to log any associative (yet hopefully productive) thoughts that come out during this research project. Each post is not intended to be a neat package of "facts." Each post, though, will strive to articulate some kind of discovery.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >The basic premise of this project is to learn as much as I can about my grandfather's work, and to see what comes out of my research.<br /><br />A helpful framework and one I've sorely needed:<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >I'm currently pursuing an independent study with a professor in the East Asian Department here at NYU, Henry Em, who has helped lay out a reading list that will help me become more familiar with the literary context that my grandfather found himself situated in (reading his work will take some time, most likely an intensive study of Korean).</span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">Some other "facts":<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >He was a writer writing in several languages: Hangul, Hanja (Chinese characters incorporated into the Korean language, with Korean pronunciation), Japanese. During much of his career, he was writing during the Japanese colonial era</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" > (1910-1945)</span><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" > where Hangul was banished, at least in the public sphere, in every public and educational institution. He was educated in Tokyo (as many Korean intellectuals were at that time). Despite his own Marxist past, he was accused of being a Japanese collaborator.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" > My first reading "assignments":<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >*<span style="font-style: italic;">Yi Kwang-su and Modern Korean Literature: Mujong </span>(Cornell East Asia Series:2005).</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >There are also two accompanying essays by </span><span style="font-size:100%;">Hwang Jongyon.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" > ~<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >My starting-off point is merely a (more) substantial attempt.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"> ~<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >My initial thought is that I will write a fictionalized memoir</span><span style="font-size:100%;">.</span></p><p> <span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >But why fictionalized? Because the idea of memoir invokes its own set of problems -- that of memorializing the author's idea of a person, rather than articulating a "true" account of the subject being written about.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >A "real" memoir would be impossible; to even attempt a full recuperation seems false.<br /><br />~<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >The email that begins this post is the first "big" email I received, in regards to my grandfather's work.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >It came in the summer of 2006. It was written by the then "PR manager" of Seoul National University.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >This was also the first time I had returned to Korea, after my family and I immigrated to the US, in July 1984.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >It was also the first time that I spent time with my grandmother (paternal side) since her visit to my parents' home, years back, in California; I must have been in third grade or so. To put it simply, my mother and my father's mother did not get along, and partly, it was this familial tension that my grandfather (and his work) was rarely talked about.</span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >*<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >A few summers later, my grandmother passed away.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >It was an evening in late June?<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >I was staying just outside of Boulder, by the Eldorado Mountains, as a fellow at Naropa University's Summer Writing Program.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >I remember this evening, because I had just finished Kristin Prevellet's "memoir" on her own father (who killed himself), a longer, graceful essay, interspersed with disparate poems.<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >The book recalls, articulates a kind of broken reflection that didn't leave me feeling broken, only wondering on what happens after grief, grieving (if this is a process that ever actually has a clear ending), and how we think about grief in order to write its experience and impact(s).<br /></span></p><p><span style=";font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >The book is entitled </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><i>I, Afterlife: Essay in Mourning Time</i>.<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">I sent a very brief email out to some close friends on the book. I find the email now. I wrote<br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;">"high recommendation:::<br /><br />kristen prevellat's <span style="font-style: italic;">[</span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="il">I</span><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="il">Afterlife</span><span style="font-style: italic;">] [</span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="il">Essay</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="il">In</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="il">Mourning</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="il">Time</span><span style="font-style: italic;">]</span>. it's a<br />quietly devastating book that describes grieving,<br />and delves into the sterile language that society uses<br />to 'record' death."</span></p><span style="font-size:100%;">I realized many months later (early fall) that I had sent this email out the same evening my grandmother passed away.<br /><br />* * *<br /></span><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p>Cristiana Baikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595340886201504217noreply@blogger.com0