Book Projects
Living with Frustration: The Quest for a Democratic Citizenship of Perseverance
My first book project in progress aims to offer a comprehensive theory of a central, yet under-theorized, feature of modern political life—frustration—at multiple scales, from interpersonal partisan conflict to the ultimate political despair that fuels calls for immediate changes or revolution.
Living with Frustration, which I tentatively call it, is grounded in novel interpretations of canonical authors such as Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and Max Weber, as well as the Korean philosopher Ham Sok Hon and the African American activist Bayard Rustin.
An introductory chapter of this book project draws on Weber. Here I develop a useful framework for the frustrating experience of ordinary democratic citizens, redirecting the focus of Weber’s classic text, Politik als Beruf, from the typical subject of professional politicians to the often-overlooked figure of the ordinary citizen as an ‘occasional politician’ (Gelegenheitspolitiker). I reconstruct and analyze three detrimental mentalities Weber points to—embitterment, banausic life, and mystic flight—as the most typical responses of democratic citizens to their own predicament of being caught between occupational demands and political mobilization. This chapter employs Weber’s own strategy of prefiguration not to prescribe an ideal, but to foster a critical awareness of the pitfalls inherent in modern democratic citizenship. Part of this chapter has been published in Max Weber Studies. A different, Korean rendition of this chapter, which also illuminates translational ambiguity previously unacknowledged by Korean academics, has been published in the Korean Journal of Humanities and the Social Sciences.
The next chapter, which builds on my AJPS article on magnanimity discussed above, will dissect the frustration arising from partisan mutual disrespect and contempt, theorizing a virtue of magnanimity capable of channeling the sense of superiority away from aggravating civic enmity and toward promoting continued engagement. The project then broadens its scope to the citizen’s relationship with the collective. In this chapter, “The Delightful Fear of the Sublime People” (Folder 7; F1.c), I use Kant’s aesthetic theory to frame ‘the people’ as a sublime object. It will analyze the powerful feelings of both attraction to and repulsion from protests, demonstrations, and uprisings, using Kant’s theory of the sublime to understand the citizen’s ambivalent position facing the formidable power of the collective. This approach, I argue, serves a crucial dual function: it inspires citizens—who remained removed largely from the role of political actors and decision-makers—to continually engage with popular sovereignty as a democratic ideal and practice, while simultaneously guarding against the dangers of uncritical passivity and the idolatry of any single claim to represent the popular will.
With these sources of frustration established, the book confronts what the most extreme form of political despair often fuels: the demand for radical, revolutionary change. A chapter developed from my working paper in preparation, Through a comparative analysis of the Korean thinker Ham Sok Hon and the American activist Bayard Rustin, this chapter will examine the profound tension between the perceived necessity of revolution and the profound reasons to eschew it, theorizing the importance of an intellectual space where secular idealism and religious realism can hold each other in check.
After addressing this ultimate question of revolutionary frustration, the book provides a broader framework for civic endurance over the long term. The next chapter will use Thomas Mann’s novel and Nietzschean philosophy to propose a new paradigm of democratic time that enables convalescence and growth amid the frustrating conditions of partisan conflicts. I will argue that democracy’s strength lies not in resolving conflict, but in fostering a temporal consciousness that allows for both frustration, convalescence, and growth, transforming what might appear as political stagnation and despair into a productive process of civic development.
By diagnosing the varied experiences of frustration endogenous to democratic citizenship,Living with Frustration will make a significant and timely contribution to the field of political science and other neighboring disciplines.
* Joseph Beuys, "Demokratie ist lustig" [1973]
It was one winter day about a decade ago. I was visiting Manhattan and had some extra time, enough time for a short trip to the MoMa nearby. Among a number of extraordinary exhibitions that provided me much inspiration during that short visit was one photographic art that arrested my immediate and sustained attention. It was a work by Joseph Beuys (1921-1986).
Beuys was a German avant-garde artist, co-founder of both Free International University and German Green Party. He was often remembered as a member of Fluxus, an international network of artists and composers founded by George Maciunas in 1960. Fluxus housed notable creative minds such as Dick Higgins, Allison Knowles, Yoko Ono, Charlotte Moorman, Nam June Paik, and Beuys.
In 1972, Beuys was an art professor at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and he got involved into a serious feud with the Kunstakademie administration over its policy of limited admission. Regarding the policy as profoundly undemocratic, Beuys intentionally over-enrolled his classes in protest. Their conflicts mounted rapidly, which ultimately ended with his dismissal.
Ernst Naninga, the photographer, captured the moment when Beuys was escorted out of the secretariat of the Kunstakademie on October 10th, 1972, after his sit-in protest with his students. Beuys walked out smiling. So did the man right behind him. The low resolution of the image notwithstanding, his grin seems to suggest a kind of cheerful mood. That is definitely not a self-satisfied smirk at the moment of triumph. His protest was broken up by the entry of the police.
But one could still say that the photograph shows, albeit dimly, his simper of superiority with composure against the grave and overbearing atmosphere. Later, Beuys inscribed three words on the photograph, which eventually turned it into an inspirational artwork: Demokratie ist lustig or democracy is merry.
Beuys's "Demokratie ist lustig" struck me more because I was writing the very first chapter of my dissertation on democratic frustration. It appeared to me that the theme of this artwork might be in line with that of my work, both the overarching theme of the project as a whole and the particular themes confined to each individual chapters on democratic communication, democratic people, and democratic time.
The First Koreans in America
My ongoing research concerning citizenship, membership, and naturalization in late nineteenth-century America has organically evolved into my second book project, tentatively titled The First Koreans in America. It has extended my archival and interdisciplinary research into the lived experience of alienage and citizenship among a group of Korean immigrants, expanding from individual case studies into a broader historical analysis.
This book will meticulously detail ideational and institutional development as observed through the individual and collective experiences of five interconnected early Korean immigrants: Soh Kwang Pom, Philip Jaisohn, Penn Su, Yun C’hi Ho, and Kiu Beung Surh. Moving beyond traditional diplomatic or political histories, the study’s focus will also be placed squarely on their first-hand experiences navigating American legal, political, and social realities centered on the issues of race, membership, and citizenship.
Crucially, these individual life stories will serve as a unique window onto the broader landscape of late nineteenth-century America. Their experiences provide a powerful vantage point from which to analyze the complex and often contradictory interplay of race, law, religion, diplomacy, ethnology, and politics. The project will also examine the roles of several key American individuals and institutions who worked with and influenced these immigrants—including George Foulk, John Welles Hollenback, Horace Allen, and Everett Frazer, E. I. Renick, as well as the Smithsonian Institution and the State Department of the United States—to paint a rich picture of these pivotal trans-national and cross-cultural encounters.
Ultimately,The First Koreans in America is not only a book about “early Koreans” but a book about “America” itself—an analysis of how the nation received, classified, and attempted to understand foreign subjects during a critical period of its history. In this way, it will make significant contributions to both Korean studies and the broader fields of American political development, as well as American ethnic, cultural, and legal history. While the book is grounded in rigorously researched and newly unearthed sources, its compelling narrative of cross-cultural encounters is intended to engage a broad audience beyond the confines of academia, telling a forgotten story that speaks to enduring questions of identity and belonging in “a nation of immigrants.”