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The Neurocognitive Criminology of Avenging Memories: Dissociative Violence in Young-ha Kim’s The Mnemonics of a Murderer

The Neurocognitive Criminology of Avenging Memories: Dissociative Violence in Young-ha Kim’s The... Young-ha Kim’s 2013 crime thriller The Mnemonics of a Murderer is a tale of neurocognitive apocalypse, wherein selfhood built upon dissociative violence turns on its own self. In the novel, a retired psychopathic serial killer suffering from Alzheimer’s disease awakens back to action upon detecting his own kind on his trail, only to discover that all was merely an elaborate construct of his deteriorating mind. The outcome is no less deadly, however, for the revelation condemns him to exposure at the hands of his own prized faculties—his memories and deeds as a murderer. Expanding on the first-person narrator’s imploding microcosm, I claim that Mnemonics demonstrates the reflexive mechanism of dissociative violence by superimposing the two-pronged neuropathology of psychopathy and dementia upon the macrocosmic climate of anomy and degeneracy in postmillennial South Korea. The recent plague of spree killings attests to a deep-seated discontent with the growing chasm of socioeconomic inequalities that betray the rosy prospects of abundance and security from the 1990s. Showing how the legacies of compressed modernity have become a reflexive mechanism of self-destruction, Mnemonics offers a chilling psychosomatic allegory of dissociative social violence in its portrayal of a system avenged by its own depravity. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Korean Studies Duke University Press

The Neurocognitive Criminology of Avenging Memories: Dissociative Violence in Young-ha Kim’s The Mnemonics of a Murderer

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Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
ISSN
0731-1613
eISSN
2158-1665
DOI
10.1215/21581665-6973323
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Young-ha Kim’s 2013 crime thriller The Mnemonics of a Murderer is a tale of neurocognitive apocalypse, wherein selfhood built upon dissociative violence turns on its own self. In the novel, a retired psychopathic serial killer suffering from Alzheimer’s disease awakens back to action upon detecting his own kind on his trail, only to discover that all was merely an elaborate construct of his deteriorating mind. The outcome is no less deadly, however, for the revelation condemns him to exposure at the hands of his own prized faculties—his memories and deeds as a murderer. Expanding on the first-person narrator’s imploding microcosm, I claim that Mnemonics demonstrates the reflexive mechanism of dissociative violence by superimposing the two-pronged neuropathology of psychopathy and dementia upon the macrocosmic climate of anomy and degeneracy in postmillennial South Korea. The recent plague of spree killings attests to a deep-seated discontent with the growing chasm of socioeconomic inequalities that betray the rosy prospects of abundance and security from the 1990s. Showing how the legacies of compressed modernity have become a reflexive mechanism of self-destruction, Mnemonics offers a chilling psychosomatic allegory of dissociative social violence in its portrayal of a system avenged by its own depravity.

Journal

Journal of Korean Studies – Duke University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2018

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    Iverson, Grant L.
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    Jansen, L. C. Harris, K. Anderson, D. C.
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    Jeon, Joseph Jonghyun
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    Kim, Yŏngha
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    Mendez, Mario F. Shapira, Jill S. Saul, Ronald E.
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    Ohikuare, Judith
  • Nyuyok T’aimsŭ kojŏng k’allŏmnisŭt’ŭ sosŏlga Kim Yŏngha ege tŭnnŭn Han’guk, Han’guk munhak
    Pak, Kyŏngmo
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    Pemmett, Jack
  • Remembering In and Out of Context
    Smith, Steven M.
  • MIT Working Paper Series: Compressed Development
    Whittaker, D. Hugh, et al
  • Delusional Misidentification Syndromes: Separate Disorders or Unusual Presentations of Existing DSM-IV Categories?
    Atta, Kamil Forlenza, Nicholas Gujski, Mariusz Hashmi, Seema Isaac, George
  • History of Dementia and Dementia in History: An Overview
    Boller, Francois Forbes, Margaret
  • Compressed Modernity and Its Discontents: South Korean Society in Transition
    Chang, Kyungsup
  • Eliminating Context-Dependent Forgetting: Changing Contexts Can Be as Effective as Reinstating Them
    Chu, S. Handley, V. Cooper, S. R.
  • Social Network, Cognitive Function, and Dementia Incidence among Elderly Women
    Crooks, Valerie C. Lubben, James Petitti, Diana B. Little, Deborah Chiu, Vicki
  • The Korean Crisis and the End of ‘Late’ Development
    Cumings, Bruce
  • Lessons Learned, South Korea Makes Quick Economic Recovery
    Fackler, Martin
  • How Gold Rode to the Rescue of South Korea
    Holmes, Frank
  • Mild Trauma in Brain Injury and Risk for Alzheimer’s Disease
    Iverson, Grant L.
  • Retention Following a Change in Ambient Contextual Stimuli for Six Age Groups
    Jansen, L. C. Harris, K. Anderson, D. C.
  • Residual Selves: Trauma and Forgetting in Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy
    Jeon, Joseph Jonghyun
  • South Korea’s Tragic Failure
    Kim, Yŏngha
  • The Spectrum of Sociopathy in Dementia
    Mendez, Mario F. Shapira, Jill S. Saul, Ronald E.
  • Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath
    Ohikuare, Judith
  • Nyuyok T’aimsŭ kojŏng k’allŏmnisŭt’ŭ sosŏlga Kim Yŏngha ege tŭnnŭn Han’guk, Han’guk munhak
    Pak, Kyŏngmo
  • Psychopathy versus Sociopathy: Why the Distinction Has Become Crucial
    Pemmett, Jack
  • Remembering In and Out of Context
    Smith, Steven M.
  • MIT Working Paper Series: Compressed Development
    Whittaker, D. Hugh, et al