Park Jun-sang: dark spot

*Dark Spot* is the new work by Professor Park Jun-sang of the Department of Philosophy at Soongsil University, who has developed original philosophical thought regarding language, the body, and the Other. Park condenses into the word "dark spot" (暗點) that which clearly exists but is invisible and impossible to explain in language—that which opens up a shared zone between the self and the Other—and explores it. In this dark spot, which lies at the root of all human experience, he discovers the possibility for new ways of thinking to emerge, as well as the possibility for isolated "selves," exploited and abandoned amidst extreme capitalism, to exist as "us." This book contains several essays on works of art across various genres; the author cautiously confesses that he has borrowed the power of art and literature not to establish specific theories and critique individual works based on them, but as a pathway for thought to directly confront "experience"—in other words, to trigger thought that "cannot begin from ideas." In this way, Park Jun-sang pushes us into the invisible zone of a dark spot, rather than the world of truth, through writing that piles up questions while oscillating infinitely between the ‘philosophical’ and the ‘literary.’ As literary critic Kang Dong-ho puts it, *Dark Spot* can be described as a “literary event” that “allows us to experience how contemplation on art—writing—can be artistic in itself.”

Korean title: 암점

Korean author: 박준상

Korean publisher: 문학과지성사

ISBN-13: 9788932030128