Using Literature in ESL Composition Classes

Peggy C. Cho 한국영미문학교육학회 2012 영미문학교육 Vol.16 No.3

Can literature be used effectively in English language classes at the university level? Many scholars and educators acknowledge the important contribution of literature to learning in general, but the use of literature in language classes, particularly in ESL situations, has not been addressed with attention to the specific needs of students. In Korean universities, students taking language classes have unique expectations and needs. In composition classes, their needs become more pronounced as making the connection between reading and writing is a challenge for many of them. Then how can literature be introduced to writing classes in English departments at Korean universities where resistance to literature or “difficult” reading is very strong? This paper attempts to answer this question not with proven strategies but by sharing personal observations and classroom techniques designed for ESL composition classes. The examples attempt to show how literature can be introduced to students to supplement the limited reading in many composition textbooks and to improve language skills for more varied and nuanced writing. Exercises and assignments tailored to the specific literary texts provide practical suggestions to link reading and writing. It is hoped that these examples will open up more discussion about developing better techniques to use literature in language classes.

Fae Mynne Ng’s Bone and a Rehabilitative Representation of Chinatown

Peggy C. Cho(조청희) 한국아메리카학회 2010 美國學論集 Vol.42 No.1

북미대륙에 차이나타운이 처음 생겨난 이래로 이 공간은 인종적 차별성을 극명하게 보여주는 장소였으며, 그곳에 정주하는 이들이 이방인이라는 점을 부각시키는 여러 이미지와 개념들과 흔히 결부되어 왔다. 범죄가 들끓고 폐쇄적인 타락한 공간이라는 차이나타운에 대한 정형화된 사고는 공공 정책의 차원에서 대중들의 편견의 차원에서 지대한 영향을 미쳐왔다. 오늘날에도 이와 같은 차이나타운의 이미지는 여전히 대중들을 매혹하고 있다. 예를 들어 중국계 미국인 작가들의 작품을 광고하려는 출판업자들은 차이나타운이라는 은밀하고 비밀스러운 장소를 묘사하고 있다는 점을 부각시키고자 애쓴다. 이처럼 주류문화에 의해 구성된 고정된 이미지,그리고 그에 따른 대중의 기대감은 차이나타운을 재현하고 중국계 미국인의 정체성을 탐색하고자 시도하는 많은 중국계 미국인 작가들에게 커다란 도전이 되어 왔다. 1993년 출간된 패 민 엥의 첫 소설 『뼈』는 차이나타운의 이와 같은 상징적 중요성을 의식하고 스스로 이방인화 하는 경향에서 벗어나고자 시도하고 있으며, 가족상흔이라는 좁은 주제를 벗어나 차이나타운 이민자 가족들의 다양한 목소리와 복잡한 역사를 포착하려고 시도하고 있다. 이 소설은 앞선 세대가 치뤘던 희생과 그들에 대한 기억을 수용하면서도 동시에 넘어서는 새로운 중국계 미국인의 정체성을 모색한다. 그럼으로써 이 소설은 구세대와 신세대를 모두 아우르는 더 폭넓고 더 복합적인 인종적 정체성의 전망이 가능하다는 점을 보여주고 있다.

Andre Brink`s An Instant in the Wind: A Post-colonial Revision of the Captivity Myth

( Peggy C. Cho ) 한국영미문화학회 2011 영미문화 Vol.11 No.3

Shipwreck narratives have been part of the seafaring explorations of West`s expansion across the globe. These narratives relate fundamentally unsettling experiences for the explorer-colonizer as well as provide layers of contesting discourses. There has long been an enduring interest in the captivity myth and the persistent metaphor of the shipwreck in the colonial imagination. Postcolonial South African writers have also found inspiration from the idea of the shipwreck. This paper examines An Instant in the Wind by Andre Brink, an imaginative revision of the legendary Eliza Fraser shipwreck and captivity which occurred off the coast of Australia in the nineteenth century. Brink transposes the Fraser shipwreck narrative to eighteenth century colonial South Africa to investigate the history of encounters between white colonials and indigenous peoples. He writes in a long tradition of castaway narratives to reveal various obstacles and conflicting oppositions that constitute contact between the races. A major dissident Afrikaner writer, Brink`s fiction focuses on the involution of myth and history in the making of the colonial imagination and its relevance to South Africa`s own history of domination and subordination. An Instant in the Wind attempts to refocalize the narrative away from the perspective of the colonizer, providing an alternative history of two individuals forming an interracial relationship based on recognition of each other`s humanity. In portraying the black African protagonist, the novel at times relies on Eurocentric oppositions and stereotypes of the African Other and on a romantic notion of individualism and interracial intimacy. The disruptive presence of conventional eurocentric discourses in the novel exposes the challenge of giving voice to the silent black in white fiction. Despite some of the pitfalls of trying to "reinvent" an alternate history for the Other, however, Brink`s revision of the shipwreck myth manages to enact his particular view of history and story-making and produce an indirect but scathing condemnation and commentary on the history of colonial violence on the African continent.

Rivaling History, Refusing Charity: Contest of Ethics and Politics in J. M. Coetzee`s Life and Times of Michael K

( Peggy C. Cho ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2010 현대영미소설 Vol.17 No.3

A Booker Prize winner in 1983, J. M. Coetzee`s Life and Times of Michael K has long attracted critical attention for introducing a protagonist who seemed unresponsive to the gravity of the historical situation and even lacking an awareness of himself. A seminal work in Coetzee`s early fictional output, it has been at the center of a heated debate between art and history or ethics and politics. While Coetzee has often been accused of evading the question of the writer`s responsibility in urgent historical times, a close examination of his works reveal that he has been acutely sensitive to the demands of history. This essay reads Life and Times of Michael K as an imaginative investigation of the very structures which produce and perpetuate injustices in history and human relations. Critics have claimed that the protagonist`s passivity and tendency to withdraw from society convey a negation of history. However, the silent, negative responses of Michael K are an expression both of a fierce resistance to authority and a profound desire for individual freedom and self-determination. By choosing to remain silent and refusing to become part of the colonial project or an object of institutional charity, Michael rivals history by exposing the fundamental dishonesty in human associations. The novel is also an important work in Coetzee`s oeuvre as it reveals his unique ethical sensibility to the act of fictional writing. As a writer acutely sensitive about the responsibility of the author and the authority wielded in writing about the other, Coetzee pays attention to the problem of interpreting the otherness of Michael K and makes it a key formal consideration. Michael K`s refusal to supply a story for a guilt-stricken narrator is used to pass judgment on the white obsession to contain the other in the narrative act. Rather than being preoccupied with its own elusiveness, Coetzee`s novel succeeds in championing the autonomy of the marginal other, both on the literal and metafictional dimensions. Thus, Life and Times of Michael K is a prime example of Coetzee`s concern with the ethical act of writing and the complicity of the author in the project of subordinating the marginal figures of society.

< 디스트릭트 9 > 사회비평으로서의 공상과학

( Peggy C. Cho ) 경희대학교 비교문화연구소 2016 비교문화연구 Vol.42 No.-

이 연구는 2009년에 개봉한 영화 District 9이 인간과 외계인의 접촉을 주제로 삼는SF 장르를 재작업하는 방식을 살펴본다. 같은 해에 개봉한 영화 Avatar처럼 District9은 인간과 외계인 간의 갈등과 혼종성의 문제를 재고하고 인간과 대비되는 비인간들을 침략자가 아닌, 인간들의 억압과 잔인함의 대상으로 소개한다. 많은 공상과학 영화가 불분명한 미래의 시점에서 발생하는 반면, District 9 영화는 SF 장르의 경계를 넘어 도시 리얼리즘을 가까이 하며 현재의 도시 인구 문제들에 대한 비평을 제공한다. 외계 생명체는 인간의 기록된 과거의 한 부분으로 등장하게 되며 이 영화의 사건은 명확하게 확인되는 현재 시점과 요하네스버그라는 잘 알려진 도시에서 발생된다. 명백한 반-할리우드 영화인 District 9은 남아프리카의 대도시와 역사적으로 연관되어 있는 분열과 갈등, 그리고 도시 빈곤과 불법 이민의 문제점들을 다루면서 타자와의 접촉에대한 인간의 불안감을 탐구한다. 이 논문은 이 특정 배경이 어떻게 이 영화를 구성하는지 그리고 외계인들이 도시 슬럼가의 비참한 환경에서 인간 이주민들과 혼합체를 이루며 도시 인구 정책아래에 생존하는 과정을 그려내면서 남아프리카의 가장 큰 도시와 오늘날의 대도시들이 직면한 현대의 사회 문제점들의 현실적인 검토를 어떻게 유도하는지를 들여다본다. 또한 이 논문은 이 영화에서 나타난 인간과 외계생물체 간 이루어진 하이브리드를 통해 타자에 대한 인간의 착취에 저항하는 힘으로써의 잠재력에 대해살펴본다. 비록 이 영화의 배경은 매우 지역적이지만, District 9은 영리를 추구하는 다국적기업의 명백한 착취의 관습을 그려냄으로써 보다 더 넓은 범위의 세계 관객에게 일침을 가하기도 한다. SF 영화이면서 도시 인구 충돌에 대해 사회 비평을 시도하는영화 District 9은 불안정감과 타자에 대한 공포감이 가득한 불확실하고 잠재적 폭력성을 가진 현대 인간 세계를 그리고 있다. This study examines the ways District 9, a film released in 2009, reworks the sci-fi genre to explore the human encounter with “other” alien populations. Like Avatar, released in the same year, District 9 addresses the tropes of conflict over land and human-alien hybridity and introduces non-humans and aliens, not as invaders, but as objects of human oppression and cruelty. Unlike many other science fiction films where the encounter between humans and non-humans occurs in an unidentifiable future time and location, District 9 crosses genre barriers to engage with urban realism, producing a social critique of contemporary urban population problems. The arrival of aliens in District 9 occurs as part of the recorded human past and the film’s action is carried out in the present time in the specifically identified city of Johannesburg. A distinctly anti-Hollywood film that locates the action at the street level, District 9 plays out human anxieties about contact with others by referencing the divisions and conflicts historically attached to South Africa’s sprawling metropolis and its current problems of urban poverty and illegal immigrants. Focusing on how this particular urban setting frames the film, the study investigates the ways Blomkamp’s sci-fi film about extra-terrestrials presents a curious postcolonial mix of aliens and immigrants surviving in abject conditions in an urban slum and forces a realistic examination of the contemporary social problems faced by South Africa’s largest city and by extension other major global cities. The paper also examines the film’s representation of the human-alien hybrid and its potential as a force to resist human exploitation of the other. It also claims that though the setting is highly local, District 9 speaks to a wider global audience by making obvious the exploitative practices of profit-seeking multinationals. A sci-fi film that is keen on making a social commentary on urban population conflicts, District 9 resonates with the wider sense of insecurity and fear of others that form the horizon of the uncertain and potentially violent contemporary human world.

Writing the Interregnum: Nadine Gordimer’s July’s People

조청희(Peggy C. Cho) 한국영미문학교육학회 2014 영미문학교육 Vol.18 No.1

A writer who has charted the historical journey of South Africa from its apartheid years to freedom and democracy, Nadine Gordimer has written at length about the significance of the interregnum in her fictions and essays. Her quintessential interregnum novel, July’s People, examines in meticulous detail the assumptions and misunderstandings that underlie the colonial hegemony of apartheid. The novel is a vivid, detailed study of inverted subject positions in a crisis situation. Putting a white family’s survival into the hands of their black servant in an imagined moment of revolution, it explores the possibility of a meaningful cross-racial connections while exposing the illusory nature of trust and dependency between the races. The novel makes abundantly clear that both whites and blacks living in the interregnum of apartheid have become entrapped within a system that perpetuates structures of material inequalities and personal injustices. The sympathetic white liberals are particularly censured for their complicity in the structures that hold blacks in servitude to the whites. The novel’s intention is ultimately to formulate a destabilization of an accustomed world to make the emphatic point that whites have to redefine themselves to prepare for radical changes if they wish to share in the new collective life of a future with the black race. By reversing the relationship of dependency between mistress and servant, the novel forces a rethinking about the underlying inequalities and internalized codes that define and sustain the interregnum.

Burying the Dead: Nadine Gordimer`s The Conservationist

조청희 ( Peggy C Cho ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2008 현대영미소설 Vol.15 No.1