UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Motions of Search: A Korean/American Epistemology Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9rs1g6kz Author Kim, Anthony Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Motions of Search: A Korean/American Epistemology A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Anthony Yooshin Kim Committee in charge: Professor Zeinabu irene Davis, Co-Chair Professor Luis Martin-Cabrera, Co-Chair Professor Dennis R. Childs Professor Page duBois Professor K. Wayne Yang 2016 Copyright Anthony Yooshin Kim, 2016 All rights reserved The Dissertation of Anthony Yooshin Kim is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Co-Chair University of California, San Diego 2016 iii DEDICATION The Korean poet Ko Un once wrote: To us already a birth place is no longer our home. The place we were brought up is not either. Our history, rushing to us through fields and hills is our home. This dissertation is written for those whose rush of histories I always carry in the dusk of my flesh and the light of my dreams no matter where I am and where I go: My parents, Jim and Sook Young Kim, whose labor and love have made the very alchemy of my existence possible and My Halmoni, Yoo Bock Hee (1923-2008), whose winter passage to haneul-nara I will mourn for the rest of my days. Thank you in ways that go beyond the horizon of all the words I know, in Korean and in English. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ............................................................................................................iii Dedication ...................................................................................................................iv Table Contents .............................................................................................................v List of Figures ..............................................................................................................vi Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................vii Vita ...............................................................................................................................xi Abstract .......................................................................................................................xii Introduction: Purpose of Journey: Emigration, Visible Peculiarities: One ...........1 Chapter 1: “And if my life is like the dust/That hides the glow of a rose”: On Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1977) and the Aesthetics of SurRealism ...........34 Chapter 2: “Do they hold as much mystery for you as they do for me?”: On Jean- Pierre Gorin’s Documentary Clocks and the Aesthetics of Improvisation .........74 Chapter 3: “REVOLUTION?”: On Jy-Ah Min’s M/F Remix (2010) and the Aesthetics of the Remix ...........................................................................................105 Appendix: The Art and Act of Documentation: For My Mother ........................141 Works Cited ..............................................................................................................165 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Reprocessed Stills from All Love is Immigrant: Halmoni 1973 ...............1 Figure 1.2: “Why Ferguson Matters to Asian Americans” ....................................15 Figure 1.3: “A Personal Manifesto for Documentary Filmmaking” ....................26 Figure 2.1: Belhaven Meridian (2010) .........................................................................46 Figure 2.2: Killer of Sheep (1977) .................................................................................47 Figure 2.3: Stan and his wife .....................................................................................63 Figure 2.4: Young Stan ...............................................................................................67 Figure 3.1: The infamous photograph .....................................................................88 Figure 3.2: “Death in film is represented as a flow of images” .............................93 Figure 3.3: A quiet, shared moment in My Crasy Life (1992) ...............................102 Figure 4.1: The anonymous soldier ........................................................................117 Figure 4.2: The Grandchildren of Marx and Coca-Cola? .....................................121 Figure 4.3: “From time to time...” ...........................................................................132 Figure 5.1: Chalkboard #1 .......................................................................................141 Figure 5.2: Chalkboard #2 .......................................................................................142 Figure 5.3: Chalkboard #3 .......................................................................................142 Figure 5.4: Her Life to Live, Close-Up ...................................................................146 Figure 5.5: My mother’s nostalgia for photographs ............................................146 Figure 5.6: The only surviving photograph of my mother ..................................164 Figure 5.7: My mother at the register of the family store .....................................164 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS If this dissertation is about a methodology of motion, a motion of search, and all the madness one is bound to encounter in-between, then I must stall for gratitude the progression of space-time to express my deepest thanks to all the fellow travelers who have guided me towards the infinite possibilities of movement along the way. I’ve been truly blessed to cross paths and work with some tremendous teachers and liberators of minds during my “long and winding road” through grad school. First, I’d like to acknowledge Professors Sarita See, Vicente Diaz, Andrea Smith, Nadine Naber, and Maria Cotera who met me during my first year as a Ph.D. in Michigan and always pushed me to find the political critique and urgency in my words. Although my time spent with all of you was brief, I still carry those early visions of what a “Critical Ethnic Studies” project should be in all my thinking and writing. At UCSD, I assembled not only a committee but a true coalition. To Professors Page duBois, Dennis Childs, K. Wayne Yang, Luis Martin-Cabrera, and Zeinabu irene Davis, my thanks a thousand times over. Page, you spurred a free expression of ideas and forms from my very first seminar to my final defense – not to mention those two confusing yet cherished quarters of independent study that we, along with Niall, embarked on through the thousand plateaus of Deleuze and Guattari. Dennis, what can I say? The passion, rigor, and commitment you bring to your intellectual and political work is without parallel and transgresses all borders. You remind me to keep dreaming and fighting for vii revolutionary change by any and all means necessary. Wayne, you were there from the beginning of my journey in San Diego and have seen me through some of the best and most difficult seasons of my life. You are truly my MVP when I envision the kind of person I want to be in and out of the classroom. Luis, you met me one afternoon in Spring 2012, and being an acute observer of my intensity, passion, and rage, simply said, yes – to political, intellectual, and spiritual growth – and challenged me to embrace the complexities of myself and to rise above. And finally, Professor Zeinabu, it is no understatement to say that I cannot even imagine the human being – let alone scholar – I would be today without you. When I walked into your production class over two years ago, I’d lost my way, but your tough and tender mentorship took me from being just another “talented ruin” to a full-fledged Ph.D. I can only hope that my work – present and future – will do you justice. Now, as a true child of the ‘90s, the rest of this is going to sound like a series of cheesy yearbook shout-outs, so cue the Boyz II Men and start slow dancing. To Sharon Heijin Lee and Dean Saranillio, both of you prove that blood may be thicker than water but soju beats them all (especially when there’s noraebang involved!). Heijin-noona, an extra thank you for always looking out for me – in spite of my “dramas and traumas” – from the Midwest to Korea to California to New York. Josen Diaz: from Summer Bridge to infinity, you are everlasting love. Jay Perez: for helping me see it’s about the people, never the institution. Thanks to us, 2Tongues will never die! R.J. Lozada: for a visual-political agility and agitation that inspire me, and yes, that shot will always reminds me of Ozu. Mark Padoongpatt, Gloria Wong, viii and Robert Eap: ever since we got fake turtle tattoos in Hawai’i, y’all have reminded me to keep my eyes on the prize. We’re all doctors now, finally! Leon Lee, América Martínez, Ana Laura Martïnez, and Leslie Quintanilla: the COGR 280 crew for life, LOVE AND SOLIDARITY. Nancy Madrid: for our pizza and beer runs that got me through some tough times in grad school. Stephanie Gomez-Menzies and Patrick Menzies: for too much red wine and even more good cheer. Violeta Sanchez and Megan Strom: you two were a tag-team determined to get this neurotic Korean to finish. Thanks for the practical advice and moral support in the breezeways at Sequoyah.