{"title":"Hardly Emotion: The Minor Feelings of US Empire and the Translational Poetics of Don Mee Choi","authors":"Daniel Y. Kim","doi":"10.1353/aq.2022.0045","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay focuses on two recent books of poetry by Don Mee Choi, Hardly War (2016) and DMZ Colony (2020), for both the historiographical work they do and how poetry and emotion are crucial to that work. These books bring into focus the neocolonial role that the United States has played in Korea, dating from the peninsula's liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 through the military dictatorships that governed South Korea through the 1990s as well as the subimperial role that country has adopted in relation to the United States. They do so, however, in ways that steep their readers in a version of what Cathy Park Hong has termed minor feelings and deploying a poetics of translation akin to what she has dubbed Bad English. By extending the historiographical reach of American studies to better address this \"forgotten war\" and its lingering violence, this essay strives to be responsive to the American Studies Association's recent resolution calling for an end to the Korean War. It also asserts that engaging more fully with issues of aesthetics and poetics might help us better acknowledge how subjects of color negotiate and even resist formations of race and empire.","PeriodicalId":51543,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN QUARTERLY","volume":"74 1","pages":"665 - 688"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AMERICAN QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2022.0045","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:This essay focuses on two recent books of poetry by Don Mee Choi, Hardly War (2016) and DMZ Colony (2020), for both the historiographical work they do and how poetry and emotion are crucial to that work. These books bring into focus the neocolonial role that the United States has played in Korea, dating from the peninsula's liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945 through the military dictatorships that governed South Korea through the 1990s as well as the subimperial role that country has adopted in relation to the United States. They do so, however, in ways that steep their readers in a version of what Cathy Park Hong has termed minor feelings and deploying a poetics of translation akin to what she has dubbed Bad English. By extending the historiographical reach of American studies to better address this "forgotten war" and its lingering violence, this essay strives to be responsive to the American Studies Association's recent resolution calling for an end to the Korean War. It also asserts that engaging more fully with issues of aesthetics and poetics might help us better acknowledge how subjects of color negotiate and even resist formations of race and empire.
摘要:这篇文章聚焦于Don Mee Choi最近的两本诗集《几乎没有战争》(2016)和《DMZ殖民地》(2020),探讨他们所做的史学工作,以及诗歌和情感对这项工作的重要性。这些书聚焦了美国在朝鲜扮演的新殖民主义角色,从1945年朝鲜半岛从日本殖民统治中解放出来,到20世纪90年代统治韩国的军事独裁统治,以及该国对美国所扮演的亚帝国角色。然而,他们这样做的方式让读者陷入了凯西·朴红(Cathy Park Hong)所说的轻微情感的版本,并运用了一种类似于她所说的糟糕英语的翻译诗学。通过扩大美国研究的历史范围,更好地解决这场“被遗忘的战争”及其挥之不去的暴力,本文努力回应美国研究协会最近呼吁结束朝鲜战争的决议。它还断言,更充分地参与美学和诗学问题可能有助于我们更好地认识到有色人种是如何谈判甚至抵制种族和帝国形成的。
期刊介绍:
American Quarterly represents innovative interdisciplinary scholarship that engages with key issues in American Studies. The journal publishes essays that examine American societies and cultures, past and present, in global and local contexts. This includes work that contributes to our understanding of the United States in its diversity, its relations with its hemispheric neighbors, and its impact on world politics and culture. Through the publication of reviews of books, exhibitions, and diverse media, the journal seeks to make available the broad range of emergent approaches to American Studies.