‘근대문학’ 이후의 ‘문학’(연구)?

"Literary" Studies after "Modern Literature"?

  The recent statement by Karatani Kojin that the days of "modern literature" have been over may be an understatement. Karatani argues that modern literature, especially the novel and criticism worthy of attention, is no longer produced, but one may say that his diagnosis disregards that it is not only the latter but also modern literature in general, even the possibility of writing itself, that has recently faced crisis. In so far as it consists of written texts, literature must obey their linearity as the principle of composition, but it is precisely this sort of textuality that has lost its cultural dominance, for as Vil？m Flusser pointed out, no longer the written text but rather the colorful surface dominates the cultural terrain in the recent years. What we instead have includes movies, television, animation, and computers with their screens which provide a radically different mechanism of affecting our perceptions. The digital revolution only intensified this turnabout of cultural experience, transforming "writing" into "programming," a process of prescribing codes into mechanical apparatuses. As a result, the "essence" of writing has fundamentally changed. When programming replaces linear writings, how can literature survive, and how should the humanities conduct its studies? This paper looks into how the technological transformation of writing may affect the condition and conception of literature and its studies.