‘문학’ 이후의 한국 문학 연구 - 디지털시대의 문학연구방법론에 대한 시론

초록

The advancement of digital technology has brought about fundamental transformations in Korean society. This society may be understood as one shaped by digital capitalism, in which digital technology is not merely a tool but is deeply embedded in the structures of human perception. From this perspective, this study examines the literary research methodology known as digital humanities, which first emerged in the early 2000s and became an area of active scholarly engagement during the 2010s. This methodology marks a shift from traditional qualitative approaches to quantitative methods, thereby reconfiguring the very concept of “literature” as the primary subject of academic investigation within literary studies. In the discourse of modern literature, the author is recognized as the sovereign creator, and the literary work is regarded as a complete aesthetic structure grounded in the characteristics of modern written language. However, in digital humanities-particularly in methodologies based on database construction-both the author and the literary text are transformed into data. The author becomes a fragmented cluster of information, resistant to unified interpretation, while the literary text loses its traditional semiotic relationship between signifier and signified, becoming instead an ever-expanding pattern of signifiers in pure presence. At this point, the conventional relationship between author and text is dismantled. The datafication of the author and the literary text is not merely a technical shift in research methodology but a fundamental challenge to the privileged status of authorship and textual authority in modern literary discourse. In this regard, it may no longer be essential for literary research to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the author or the work, as traditionally demanded by institutional norms. Rather, what becomes crucial is a reflection on how literature, re-objectified through these methods, can be newly understood in the digital age.

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