Papers by Gord Sellar
Arena Journal, No. 35/36, 2011: [217]-232., 2011
Environmentalism in South Korea has long been associated with political leftism and its so-called... more Environmentalism in South Korea has long been associated with political leftism and its so-called minjung ideology, that is, constructed as oppositional to the pro-business, pro-United States and authoritarian Right associated with the country's post-war dictatorships. The resultant conflation of anti-Americanism and environmentalism has allowed the Korean Left to mobilize powerful folk-narratives of US crime - environmental, political and otherwise - in debates over the presence of US military bases. One such narrative, loosely based on the dumping of toxic chemicals into the Han River in Seoul, is central to the South Korean science fiction blockbuster Gwoemul (2006), the title of which literally translates as 'monster', although the film is known internationally as The Host. The film's monster embodies a minjung vision of the ecology of dystopian politics and the politics of ecological dystopianism. Despite director Bong Joon-Ho's claims to the contrary, The Host is saturated with politics, embodying a South Korean leftist critique in which pollution and environmentalism are conflated with and tied to the relationship between the Korean and US governments. The monster embodies the ideological conflation of a polluted ecology with a political ecology itself 'polluted' by US influence. The Host's overt investment in, and attempted resuscitation of, explicitly leftist politics and specifically 'magical' thinking regarding politics, environment and nation, rooted in the historical experience of the post-war development-era dictatorships, simply cannot be ignored.
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Acta Koreana, Vol 14, No. 1. (Korean Cinema Theme Issue.), Jun 2011
The global production, distribution, and consumption of interesting SF is difficult to explain on... more The global production, distribution, and consumption of interesting SF is difficult to explain on the basis of extant theories linking SF reception and production to industrialization. South Korea offers a striking example of a highly-industrialized society saturated with technosocial change, influenced by foreign SF but without more than marginally successful localization of the SF genre in literary or cinematic form. The Korean film industry's forays into the "foreign landscape" of SF over the past decade allow for alternative interpretations. Analysis of Lee Si-Myung's 2009: Lost Memories (2002), Jeong Yun-su's Yesterday (2002), Jang Sun-woo's The Resurrection of the Little Match Girl (2002), Jang Joo-Hwan's Save the Green Planet (2003), Min Byung-Chun's Natural City (2003), and Bong Joon-Ho's The Host (2007), for example, reveal specific aspects of Korean culture that problematize the localization of the SF genre to a Korean setting, namely problems of generic fluency on the part of audiences and creators alike, post-colonial nationalist-historiographic concerns, anxieties of influence regarding foreign-originating genre and narrative forms, and more. A study of recent Korean SF films—primarily those which fail as specimens of the SF genre—is followed by a discussion of approaches which have resulted in the successful circumvention of cultural barriers to the localization of SF, suggesting tantalizing possibilities for the continued localization process and development of a native Korean SFnal imaginary.
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Conference Presentations by Gord Sellar
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Books by Gord Sellar
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Academic Book Reviews by Gord Sellar
Kyoto Journal #77, 25 May 2013., May 25, 2013
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Japan Times, Apr 10, 2011
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Japan Times , Oct 10, 2010
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Literary Book Reviews by Gord Sellar
Kyoto Journal. (Forthcoming.)
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Kyoto Journal 78, Nov 11, 2013
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Cascadia Subduction Zone. 4.2: 20 April 2014., Apr 20, 2014
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Papers by Gord Sellar
Conference Presentations by Gord Sellar
Books by Gord Sellar
Academic Book Reviews by Gord Sellar
Literary Book Reviews by Gord Sellar