Interview with Professor Lee Young-seok of the Department of French Literature at the College of Humanities
- 글번호
- 389343
- 작성일
- 2024-06-11
- 수정일
- 2024-06-11
- 작성자
- 홍보팀 (032-835-9490)
- 조회수
- 1169
ಮ
Since its opening in 1979, Incheon National University's Humanities College has made various efforts to lay the foundation for basic studies that meet the needs of the times and sometimes to present a model for leading studies of the times. In the process, professors, instructors, staff, and assistants have sometimes led and sometimes supported each other, continuing their cooperation and efforts. In particular, Professor Lee Young-seok of French Literature played an important role at the center. On June 5th, the College of Humanities held an interview with Professor Lee Young-seok, who will retire at the retirement age in August, along with a lecture commemorating his retirement.
ಮ
[Professor Lee Young-seok of French Literature Department to retire in August]
ಮ His first appointment at Incheon National University was in 2006. What is the most memorable thing in your first year at Incheon National University? 2If you have any impressive school changes you have seen during your tenure from 2006 to now, please tell me what they are specifically.
It is regrettable that if I had expected these questions at the time of my appointment, I would have organized wonderful answers in a diary format. To go back to that era, we have to go back in time along the stream of memories, and the shadow of oblivion blocks the way. It's hard to put the tape of my life back in a word.
It was in 2006 that I met French literature students, humanities professors, and assistants at Incheon National University. At that time, when I was appointed to Incheon National University, the current Incheon National University was Incheon City University and it was in a poor situation in many ways.
In that year, most of the new professors of my appointment at Incheon City University were close to 12 years of age with me, and I remember that I was the oldest. On the first day of school, the humanities center on a hill at the university, which was called the "Wuthering Heights" because it was still windy in cold weather, is still standing in front of me. I think all professors and humanities students who spent their campus days in Dohwa-dong will have memories of the stormy hills where the humanities college building was located.
There is no central heating system in the Humanities University building, so I remember using the oil stove in the lab every winter. The heat was hot, and it was nice to be able to strike the fire from time to time, but the smell of oil made it hard.
After moving to Songdo Campus, the situation of all educational facilities has improved significantly. In the meantime, the number of humanities professor has doubled, and it is amazing that Incheon National University's humanities university is ranked in the top 11th place (2021, JoongAng Ilbo University Evaluation) and top 13th place (2023, JoongAng Ilbo University Evaluation) in the Korean university evaluation in the humanities field in the 2020s. I am convinced that the efforts of professors and all members of the humanities university have been made beyond the poor conditions.
I predict that professors at Incheon National University's humanities college with humanities competencies will make the future of humanities bright and sunny weather.
ಮ I'm curious about your thoughts on reaching retirement age this year at the university where you've been for a long time.
On a good day in June, ahead of the retirement age at the end of August 2024, I would like to present my short impressions on Incheon National University, where I have been for the past years, even though I know there is a lack of research and education. Now, as I say goodbye to Incheon National University and look back on the past as my memory guides me beyond oblivion, I realize that Incheon National University was an important community for me.
First of all, I feel very happy that the past that is still going on at Incheon National University is remembered as it is now. I had a very beautiful time at Incheon University College of Humanities. I would like to express my gratitude once again to the professors of the French Department of Literature and the professors of the College of Humanities for having a happy time.
I always try to remember and keep the days of wine I drank with professors of the humanities university in the present tense. Of course, I would also like to thank students in the Department of French Literature, students in the College of Humanities, assistants in the College of Humanities, and staff in the administration office. There is no lie in the word 'happy'. Incheon National University was the stage of my life, my life, and the path I walked. It was my good times.
Even today, with only a few days left to say goodbye to my research and education at Incheon National University, French literature, philosophy, and art are still not clear to me, and I have not achieved my decisive studies with my laziness. Realization is still a long way off. I'm just desperately feeling the incompetent human being I've learned from Samuel Beckett, a major writer.
However, I lived happily, rambling on and on about this and that for a long time. I met a man named Beckett, and I met his plays and literature, and I was always happy, frustrated, envious, and I lived well in the world selling him.
After my retirement, I will humbly summarize my years as a professor of French literature at Incheon National University and my days in French literature and theater, and try to find the meaning of life in the horizon of humanities. To this end, I will devote the rest of my life to reading and writing again. Even if it becomes reading and writing for failure to achieve enlightenment.
I will still face infinitely beautiful failures, worst failures as I read and write, but I will find my reason for existence here and feel some pleasure. I am still about to start a new journey from the past to the present and into French literature and philosophy and art.
ಮ Please briefly describe your views on the academic world. And if you have anything you want to say to the subsequent generation of academics or French literature, please leave it.
I think humanities is a study that asks questions about the identity of humans and the world and finds answers to them. Speaking of which, I started talking about the humanities too boring and bland.
I think the fundamental search and reflection on the identity of the world and the identity of the self begins with reading. Reading and writing are the beginning and end of the humanities. I think the proposition 'I think, so I exist' is above all tied to the beautiful verbs 'read' and 'write'.
The French philosopher Bachelard imagined heaven to be a library full of all kinds of books. Looking back now, my past years were mainly when I read and thought about French literature, philosophy, and art, and these years were also times of serious crisis for me.
I think everyone is in a certain historical position, but in the dark days of the 70s and 80s when I was in college, the youth of the time spent years of escape and resistance because of frustrated hope. In this hopeless time, I remember finding my breath in the final resting place of reading, reading French literature. In addition, there was alcohol that I drank with enthusiasm, spirit, and frustration to get drunk. In French literature achieved by various writers, I saw hope that I could find myself as a universal subject and myself as an existential subject.
Books about revolution and Karl Marx were forbidden, so it was a ridiculous time when it was dangerous to just have these books. Of course, these are liberating books that anyone can read freely today.
In the past, human history has been marked by violence, and the humanities encompassing progress and tradition were the studies of freedom and liberation that freed humanity from violence. Professor Park Yi-moon, who majored in French literature and philosophy, met with the of writers in Paris and helped me decide my major.
At this point in the 21st century, I would like to add a word to the subsequent generation of academics and all students and researchers majoring in French literature. I see these people as precious companions of the humanities in the age of humanities crisis, the age of the end.
I personally like the word companion. I fully feel that we are in an era where video civilization and culture are opening up a new future with the emergence of media, but I think the civilizations of Gutenberg and Jikji are still valid.
I don't think the media of the past and the media of the present are disconnected. The movement of civilization and the birth of a new visual civilization began with the text in language, which is a legacy of the past. The humanities that lead to thinking are not just research that has been done in the past, but play an important role in understanding the present and shaping the future.
The ultimate happiness that humanity seeks is humanistic values. Since Oedipus asked questions about his identity, humans have revealed their lives and meanings in the process of searching for answers to ask me, 'Who am I?'
What I want to say again to the next generation of humanities studies is, please don't forget that your studies enable a deep understanding of humans and society, and that knowledge can contribute to making the world a better place. I will become a humanities doctor who will heal and restore humanities.
When I read the text carefully and read it again, I have the joy of writing and intellectual joy that I feel when the meaning that I couldn't understand comes to mind inside me. I hope you will read and read books slowly and meticulously, rewrite and rewrite until the notes are sunset, and explore various perspectives with a humble mind of doubt and criticism to broaden the horizon of the humanities.
In this process, I hope it will be a journey to look back on yourself, taste the pain and joy of reading, and find myself bigger than the universe. I'm joining this journey, too. You cannot predict the future of the humanities, where there is always danger, but the flowers of the humanities will surely bloom at the intersection of the verbs 'read' and 'write'.
ಮ Introduction to Professor Lee Young-seok of French Literature
academic ability 1987 Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Western Language University, French Department (History of Literature)
1990 Department of French Literature, University of Paris, France (Master of Literature)
1996 Department of French Literature (M.D.) at Paris University, France
Career 2006~Currently, assistant professor, assistant professor, and professor at Incheon National University
2021~2023 President of the College of Humanities, Incheon National University Graduate School of Culture
2015~2016 Director of Humanities Research Institute, Incheon National University
2013~2015 Director of the Korean Language Institute, Incheon National University
2004~2006 a full-time researcher at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
2003~2004 a research professor at Sangmyung University
a representative thesis
‘A Study on the Series of Writing by Samuel Beckett’, a study of French literature, 1998.
『a study of body language in absurd dramas : With Samuel Beckett and Boris Bian at the center』, Ph.D. thesis at Paris University, 1996.
Research results
‘‘Physician (疑似) Drama and Playwriting Study - Ionesco's Victims of Duty’, Humanities Research, 2020.
‘First-person novel strategies and exploration of subjects in Beckett's Malone meurt’, World comparative literature, 2019.
‘The composition of the subject and the aestheticization of the novel in Samuel Beckett's Molloy’, the study of foreign literature, 2013.
‘Eugen Ionesco's absurdity and comic aesthetics ; "Bald girl singer" and "Jack or Submission" are the main characters, the study of French studies, 2017.
‘The Decentralization Strategy of French Culture and the Avignon Festival of Jean Villar 1947-1970’, Humanities Research, 2016
‘narrative techniques and palanpest writing of Beckett's Molloy’, a comparative study of world literature, 2014.
‘A Study of Theater Aesthetics and Playwriting in Cocteau's "The Machine of Hell La Machine Innale"’, French Culture and Arts Research, 2013.
‘A Study on the Character's Memory, Stage Writing, and Identity-Beckett's Irregularities’, French literature education, 2012.
‘A Study on the Character Effect in Modern French Theater: Focusing on Cocteau's "Machine of Hell" and Beckett's "Waiting for Godot"’, Global cultural contents, 2012.