I had an idea of making this page into some kind of web resource for my idea of the Korean gothic.
But then I thought, I'm not in grad school anymore; in fact, I left grad school because I was tired of being told what to write and how to write it. I loved being in grad school, but I loved writing more. So I'm not going to adhere to critical writing norms on this website. What I present here is a less professional, and more personal piece of writing, which borrows from the critical tradition but doesn't attempt to be accepted by it.
There is also the inherent problem of the Korean gothic (or any gothic): if it's invisible, and the only way to talk about it is to talk around it, how do I write about it? This is what makes gothic texts (and gothic criticism) so fascinating and infuriating to read. I have no solution for this dilemma, of digging out these thin film of discourse that dissolve when touched by light. Not to mention the fish-talking-about-water problem. I live in Korea; if it's all around me, yet hidden all around me, how am I to describe it? Because once I start describing it, the it I am describing manages to elude language, instantly mutating into a different, unreached form.
And finally—not really finally, but anyway—there is the problem of hypertext and the reification of the Internet. A website, which works with even less predictability as a fixed text (because I don't plan on writing up everything perfectly before I upload, and will change things on a whim because seriously who cares) would really explain the Korean gothic so much as obfuscate it further. And, paradoxically (of course), this does explain the Korean gothic. Because when it comes to the gothic, only by not talking about it can I really talk about it.
more to come . . .
