Awakening through Literature and Film: Into the Dancing Light by Dr. Jae-seong Lee, Professor of English at Pusan National University, South Korea, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in the U.K. is an interdisciplinary work. In order to deeply understand a work of literature or film, the reader or the viewer requires the emotional and spiritual experience of the sublime aesthetic power, through which one may glimpse the ultimate reality, as well as the thematic approach. This book, mainly from the perspective of literary criticism of postmodern ethics and kongan (koan)/hwadu Chan, Seon, and Zen Buddhism, guides the reader to not simply follow the conventional thematic approach, but to catch nondual, spiritual feelings while appreciating a given work. Through a meditative state, the reading or watching of such work would ultimately be a way of questing for spiritual enlightenment. This book is very timely as Buddhism is fast spreading in the United States and the West as a whole. The author, Jae-seong Lee, Ph. D is a Professor of English at Pusan National University, the Republic of Korea. He obtained both his B.A. and Ph. D in English at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. His primary interest lies in postmodern ethics, Buddhism, Taoism, postmodern Christianity, and literary works and films that lead the audience to consider what lies beyond the egos understanding. He is the author of the book Postmodern Ethics, Emptiness, and Literature: Encounters between East and West (2015), which won the Grand Prize at the 7th Wonhyo Academic Awards in 2016, the most prestigious academic award in South Korean Buddhism.

(2021.6.17.)