Pak Yong-hui's Artificial Labor

Abstract

This paper is focuses on KAPF critic and writier Pak Yong-hui's less emphasized role as a translator and specifically his translation of the play, Karel Capek's "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)". As most colonial intellectuals in Korea were, Pak is an example of a "foreign" mediator, having studied abroad in Japan and a prolific translator of foreign works, much of his creative impetus was assisted through his "translingual practice". Translations like "R.U.R" in the korean case is an example of a "discursive occurrence," using Lydia Liu's term, that contributes to the contruction of Korean modernity and proletarian culture through an act of equivalence.