미국문학을 통한 문화교육의 모색

A Pedagogical Search for Teaching American Culture through American Literature

The question of how to redesign American literature courses in the Korean context has recently been in crucial debate. This paper explores methods of teaching American literature as a part of area studies, with the emphasis on interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies, American Literary texts have functioned as a crucial part 01 American Studies in Korean academia, to enhance a practical level of understanding of an area and reach a critical awareness of cultural complexities, This paper addresses issues of how to combine area studies and in-depth analysis of American culture, and how to equip students with critical apparatus to understand the US from a multiplicity of perspectives. This paper discusses key issues involved in the current restructuring of curriculum of American literature courses. The courses designed to teach American culture through American literature include such related issues as deconstruction of canon and cultural elitism. Awareness of the politics of the canon leads to the de-centralizing of media, negates the literacy-centeredness of written texts, and encompasses new media and popular culture, These course designs have an interdisciplinary nature, and encourage a holistic perspective of an area from almost any viewpoint of culture, through a methodology that combines different sources of knowledge into an interdisciplinary understanding. Pedagogical theses should be taken into consideration in a specifically Korean context which concerns the readers/receivers in "Reception Theory," in order to engender in-depth understanding of the students, This paper specifically shows how to approach Mark Twain's texts as a pedagogical case study for teaching aspects of American culture and enhancing cultural competence. This paper concludes that the study of American culture is a mainstay of the curriculum in current debate over the role that American literature courses should play in the Korean academe.