The Center for K-Academic Expansion in Philosophy launched a new website that contains all of their online courses in Korean philosophy and culture.
Check it out! It's likely the only resource of its kind.
Read the article: here
The Sŏkkuram principal Buddha image, created in mid-eighth-century Unified Silla, was conceived as a replication of the Bodhgayā Mahābodhi enlightenment image, intentionally reproducing its precise dimensions, even as its sculptural style reflects Tang Chinese influence rather than Indian prototypes. Soon after its creation, it came to function as a canonical prototype for Buddhist sculptural production in late Unified Silla. This paper examines the replications and transformations the Sŏkkuram image generated as a canonical prototype through the early Koryŏ period. The stone seated Buddha from An’gye-ri, Kyŏngju, is identified as a faithful replication, notably reproducing even the distinctive pentagonal pillar sockets—a feature unattested elsewhere in Unified Silla. A survey of the broader Sŏkkuram lineage reveals a wide spectrum: from stylistically close replications to images retaining only the formal type, and from iconographic transmission to transformations extending the bhūmisparśamudrā to Medicine Buddha imagery—produced across diverse social strata. The paper repositions the Sŏkkuram Buddha not as an isolated masterwork but as a normative prototype of an enduring sculptural tradition. This breadth and persistence—spanning stone, iron, and dry lacquer over several centuries—suggests an authority exceeding artistic prestige, raising the possibility the image was perceived as possessed of numinous power.
Keywords:
Sŏkkuram; bhūmisparśamudrā; canonical prototype; Unified Silla; Koryŏ; sculptural replication; An’gye-ri Buddha; Bodhgayā; iconographic transmission; Medicine Buddha
**To participate, please send your registration information to fellowship@aks.ac.kr by Tuesday, June 9, 5:00 PM (KST).**
The Academy of Korean Studies is pleased to announce the 196th AKS Colloquium, which will be held online via Zoom on Thursday, June 11, at 1:30 PM (KST).
Organized as part of the AKS Fellowship Program, the AKS Colloquium provides a platform for international scholars conducting Korean studies research in Korea to present their work and engage in academic exchange. This session will feature presentations by the 2026 AKS Fellowship recipients, who will share the outcomes of their ongoing research. We warmly invite your interest and participation.
Presentation Details
Okyang Chae-Duporge (최옥경), Bordeaux Montaigne University
Nayoung Kwon (권나영), University of Oregon
Yuko Nagasawa (나가사와 유코), Waseda University
Jisoo M. Kim (김지수), George Washington University
A discussion and Q&A session will follow the presentations.
To participate, please send your registration information to fellowship@aks.ac.kr by Tuesday, June 9, 5:00 PM (KST).
Contact: Center for International Affairs,
AKSEmail: fellowship@aks.ac.kr
Link to podcast: here
Many of us value autonomy in decision-making: we want to make our own choices and think for ourselves. But we also know that in many areas of life, it is well advised to have greater faith in people who know more than we do, in experts such as doctors, scientists, plumbers, chess coaches, teachers, and maybe even philosophers.
In this episode of This Is the Way, we explore moral autonomy and moral deference in Confucian philosophy, focusing on Xunzi’s powerful defense of trusting tradition, ritual, and moral experts. We also explore some powerful objections to Xunzi by later Confucians who worried that too much deference to external sources might make real moral understanding — and thus real moral virtue — impossible.
Link to the talk: here
On June 9th at 12:30 pm (CEST), CrossAsia DH are pleased to host the fifth session of the CrossAsia DH Lunchtalks 2026. This session will feature a presentation by Dr. Donghyeok Choi titled “From Reading to Discovery: AI-Assisted Workflows for East Asian Historical Texts.” In this talk, Dr. Choi explores how the craft of historical research is changing in the age of AI through several of his ongoing digital humanities projects focused on premodern East Asian texts. The abstract is as follows:
What does it mean to be a historian in the age of AI? AI is not the first such shift. The digital turn quietly reshaped how historians work. It raised accessibility. A historian today starts a project at a search engine, pulls sources from a digital archive, and turns archive photographs into research data at home. As Ian Milligan puts it, “we are all digital now.” If the digital turn brought accessibility, AI brings something accessibility alone could not: machine reading at the scale of the archive itself. Why scale? Historical research moves through stages: reading, extracting, structuring, analyzing, visualizing, asking new questions. Each works on a single document but breaks at archive scale. The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty hold roughly 384,000 articles across five centuries. Reconstructing the careers of even one generation of officials requires linking and reasoning across more material than a single researcher can manage.
In this talk I draw on several ongoing projects, including a vision-language model fine-tuned for Manchu and an agent-based record-linkage system across the Annals and the Bangmok (civil-examination rosters), to argue that AI does not replace any step in this sequence; it changes the scale at which each becomes possible. The Manchu model does not read more carefully than a Manchu specialist, but it makes an entire archive legible. The linkage system does not match identities more carefully than a historian by hand, but it tracks the same person across sources that no individual could reconcile end to end. Once reading, linkage, and structuring scale up, questions of a different order become askable: not one official’s career, but a generation’s; not one local pattern, but the structure of bureaucratic mobility across five centuries. The historian’s craft is unchanged; what changes is what becomes askable. To be a historian in the age of AI is to treat discovery, when the data itself begins to suggest the questions, as a stage of the craft.
About the speaker:
Dr. Donghyeok Choi is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University. He holds a Ph.D. from KAIST’s Graduate School of Culture Technology (2024) and a B.A. in History and a B.E. in Computer Science Engineering from Sungkyunkwan University. He applies computational and quantitative methods to East Asian history and builds AI-assisted research infrastructure for the humanities. He previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Hong Kong.
Book info: Kwon, Heonik and Jun Hwan Park. 2022. Spirit Power: Politics and Religion in Korea’s American Century.
New York: Fordham University Press. 216 pp. Paperback $32.00. ISBN: 9781531500338.
Read the review: here
The Institute of Korean Studies at Indiana University Bloomington is seeking applications for the Midwest Korean Studies Graduate Conference to be held Saturday, November 7^(th) 2026.
Applicants should send their CV and a 250-word abstract of their Korean Studies related project to iks@iu.edu by September 14th, 2026. Participants will receive full travel coverage.
Please apply if you are interested and share with graduate students that may be interested as well.
See attached flyer and reach out to iks@iu.edu if you have any questions.
Flyer: here
The 20th Annual Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS) - Denial, Exclusion, Absence: Exploring the Negative Space in Asia
November 20–21, 2026 | Olomouc, Czech Republic
Abstract submission deadline: July 15, 2026
acas.upol.cz | acas@upol.cz
The Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc is currently accepting proposals for its 20th Annual Conference on Asian Studies (ACAS) to be held on November 20–21, 2026 in Olomouc, Czech Republic. The general theme of this year’s conference is Denial, Exclusion, Absence: Exploring the Negative Space in Asia. We invite contributions that deal with issues related to this theme with a focus on the languages, cultures, societies, and histories of Asia as well as their diasporic manifestation, using a variety of theoretical, methodological, and (inter)disciplinary approaches. Proposals should be grounded in original research in anthropology, history, international relations, linguistics, literature, philosophy, political science, sociology, visual art, and other fields in the humanities and social sciences.
We invite proposals in the following formats: (1) individual papers; (2) organized panels; (3) research posters, and (4) alternative formats, such as films, poetry, artworks, performing arts, etc. The conference will also include a session dedicated to (5) student papers (which do not have to be related to the general theme).
Please see the conference website acas.upol.cz for details on the conference theme, submission process (including the submission link), conference fee, organizer, venue, and more. The working language of the conference is English.
The deadline for abstract submission is July 15, 2026.
Questions can be addressed to acas@upol.cz.
We look forward to your proposals.
The Organizing Team of ACAS 2026
Dongkyu Kim
Soojeong Yi
Eunsil Son
Donald Baker
SUMMARY:
Hangeul is one of the best-known, but also one of the youngest scripts in the world. It is a rare example of a writing system created for a language that had long used a script borrowed from another language. Linguists have praised Hangeul for its efficient design that reflects phonological features of Korean. Koreans take pride in Hangeul as one of Korea’s greatest cultural achievements and as a symbol of independence from hegemonic neighbors.
In this lecture, I examine three points of contention in discussions of Hangeul’s creation, spread, and eventual dominance. The first point is the question of who developed Hangeul. The majority opinion holds that King Sejong (r. 1418–1450) created Hangeul by himself beginning in 1443 and promulgated it in 1446. A minority opinion, however, argues that King Sejong received significant help and that he should not be considered the sole creator. The second point is the question of which, if any, scripts influenced the development of Hangeul. Standard history presents Hangeul as a unique creation free of influence from other writing systems. Some scholars, such as the late Gari Ledyard, however, have suggested that the ʼPhags-pa script—a Tibetan-derived unified writing system for the languages of the Yuan Dynasty commissioned by Kublai Khan (r. 1260–1294)—influenced the shape of some Hangeul letters. Other scholars have speculated about possible influence from Indian scripts through Buddhist manuscripts. The third point is the question of the dissemination of Hangeul during the Joseon Dynasty. Established views cast Hangeul as peripheral to classical Chinese (Hanmun) until nationalists and Christian missionaries revived it at the end of the 19th century. More recent interpretations have focused on the steady spread of Hangeul through women’s writing and the popularity of novels written in Hangeul in the later Joseon period. I close by offering my own views on these questions and reflecting on their significance for a fuller understanding of Hangeul.
BIO:
Robert J. Fouser holds a B.A. in Japanese language and literature, and an M.A. in applied linguistics, both from the University of Michigan, and a Ph.D. in applied linguistics from Trinity College Dublin. He studied Korean language at Seoul National University in the 1980s. He lived in Japan from 1995 to 2008 where he taught foreign language education at Kyoto University and developed the Korean language program at Kagoshima University. From 2008 to 2014, he taught in the field of Korean as a second/foreign language at Seoul National University. He is currently an independent scholar based in Providence, Rhode Island.
He is the author of six books in Korean, including Oegugeo jeonpadam [The Spread of Foreign Languages], Robeoteu paujeo ui dosi tamgugi [Exploring Cities with Robert Fouser] – revised and expanded as Tosi dokbeop [How to Read Cities] 2024, – Oegugeo hakseupdam [Thoughts on Learning Foreign Languages], and Tosi neun wae yeoksa reul bojonhaneunga [Why Do Cities Preserve History?] (2024). His next book in Korean, Munja jeonpadam [The Spread of Writing Systems], will be published in June 2026. He is also the translator of Understanding Korean Literature (1997) by Kim Heunggyu and a co-author of Hanok: The Korean House (2015, revised 2024). He writes regular columns in English and Korean for various media outlets in Korea.
ADMISSION (Online & In-person): Free for RAS Korea Lifetime and Annual Members; W10,000 for Non-members; W5,000 for Non-member students (Student ID requested)
VENUE:
Seoul Public Activities Center (SPAC, 서울시공익활동지원센터) is located at Yongsan Verdium Friends #101 (용산베르디움프렌즈 101동) B1, 40 Baekbeomro 99-gil, Yongsan-gu, Seoul.
Walk 2-3 minutes from ‘Exit 8’ of Samgakji Station (LINE 6 & 4) and take the elevator down to the B1 Floor.
Address: B1, 40 Baekbeomro 99-gil, Yongsan Verdium Friends #101, Yongsan-gu, Seoul
Buy the ebook PDF: here
The Hwarang segi manuscripts, written by Pak Ch’anghwa (1889–1962), have been a hot topic in Korean history since their discovery in 1989. Some scholars claim that Pak discovered the lost Hwarang segi of Kim Taemun (fl. 704) in Japan while working for the Imperial Library during the 1930s and made hand copies of it; others maintain they are forgeries. Richard McBride’s detailed study of the arguments on their authenticity, analysis of evidence from Pak’s other writings about Silla, comprehensive historical context, and full English translation demonstrates that the manuscripts constitute an in-progress novel composed by Pak during the 1930s.
About the author:
Richard D. McBride II, Ph.D. (2001), UCLA, is Professor of Korean Studies and Buddhist Studies at BYU. He has published books and articles on Korean and Chinese Buddhism and early Korean history, including The Three Kingdoms of Korea (Reaktion Books, 2024).
Readership:
The readership is university libraries, specialists in Korean historical literature, graduate students in Korean studies, early Korean history (to 935), and the culture and literature of colonial Korea (1910–45). students of early Korean history (to 935) and colonial Korea (1910–45).
This volume offers a fresh exploration of the enduring dialogue between Confucianism and Buddhism, two traditions that have profoundly shaped East Asian thought. Reviving an exchange long neglected in modern scholarship, it proposes a new comparative approach in the philosophy of religion—a way of understanding how these traditions have long coexisted through seeming opposition, continually shaping, challenging, and enriching each other’s visions of truth and virtue.
Contributors examine diverse encounters where Buddhist and Confucian thinkers debated life and death, emotion and morality, self-cultivation and governance, while finding inspiration across traditions. Through discussions of ethics, political order, meditation, music, and humility, the chapters reveal how this dialogue generated creative syntheses that transformed both traditions over time. Together, they show that the interplay between Buddhism and Confucianism remains a living source of insight into the cultivation of virtue and human flourishing today.
buy/access the book: here
Read: here
이 글은 북한 조선철학사 연구에서 ‘애국문화계몽운동(사상)’이 어떻게 해석되어 왔는지를 시기별 변화를 중심으로 통시적으로 분석한다. 애국문화계몽운동은 조선철학사가 주체사상으로 수렴되기 이전의 최종단계에 위치하는 철학적 흐름으로서 그 규정과 체계, 평가는 북한 철학계의 방법론적 지침 변화에 따라 지속적으로 재조정되어 왔다. 1960년 『조선철학사 상』에서 최초 등장한 애국문화계몽운동은 맑스레닌주의적 방법론에 입각하여 규정되었으나, 주체사상의 체계화가 완료된 1980년대 이후 계급성과 역사주의, 민족성의 원칙에 따라 본격적인 체계화가 시도된다. 특히 1991년 ‘우리식 사회주의’의 전면화를 계기로 애국문화계몽운동에 대한 평가는 부정에서 긍정으로 전환되었으며, 반침략 애국주의의 강조 속에서 새로운 사상가들이 추가되고 서술 내용이 대폭 확대되기에 이른다. 2000년대 이후에는 개별 사상가들의 철학을 조선철학사의 발전적 맥락 속에 위치시키는 작업이 완료되면서, 그들의 철학을 선별하여 ‘주체사상 직전의 최고 단계’로 격상시킨다. 이 글은 이러한 통시적 분석을 통해 북한 조선철학사 연구의 내적 논리와 그 변화를 해명하는 한편, 남북철학연구의 소통 가능성을 모색한다.
This article provides a diachronic analysis of how the “Patriotic Cultural Enlightenment Movement” (Aeguk munhwa gyemong undong) has been interpreted in North Korean studies of Korean philosophical history (Chosŏn ch’ŏrhaksa), focusing on the changes across different periods. As a philosophical current situated at the final stage before the convergence of Korean philosophical history into Juche ideology, the movement’s definition, systematization, and evaluation have been continuously readjusted in accordance with shifts in the North Korean philosophical establishment’s methodological guidelines. The Patriotic Cultural Enlightenment Movement first appeared in History of Korean Philosophy, vol. 1(1960), where it was defined on the basis of Marxist-Leninist methodology. Following the completion of the systematization of Juche ideology in the 1980s, however, more thoroughgoing efforts at systematization were undertaken in accordance with the principles of class character, historicism, and national identity. In particular, the full-scale adoption of “our-style socialism” (uri-sik sahoejuŭi) in 1991 marked a turning point at which the evaluation of the movement shifted from negative to positive; under the emphasis on anti-imperialist patriotism, new thinkers were incorporated and the scope of description was substantially expanded. From the 2000s onward, the project of situating individual thinkers’ philosophies within the developmental framework of Korean philosophical history was brought to completion, with selected aspects of their thought elevated to “the highest stage immediately preceding Juche ideology.” Through this diachronic analysis, the article elucidates the internal logic of North Korean studies of Korean philosophical history and its transformations, while exploring the possibilities for academic dialogue between South and North Korean philosophical research.
Dear all,
The Kyujanggak Korean Studies Book Talk Series: Lecture I will be held on Wednesday, May 27th at 1:00 PM (KST).
For this event, Dr. Richard McBride II (Brigham Young University) will present on his book: The Three Kingdoms of Korea: Lost Civilizations.
The event will be conducted in English, and held in a hybrid format.
We warmly invite your interest and participation.
Book Title: The Three Kingdoms of Korea: Lost Civilizations
Date: Wednesday, May 27th at 1:00 PM (KST)
Venue: Room 444, Kyujanggak Institute for Korean Studies (Bldg. 103) & Zoom Online Meeting (A separate email will be sent the day before.)
Language: English
Author: Richard McBride II (Brigham Young University)
Moderator: Sem Vermeersch (Seoul National University)
Discussant: Seon Tae Yoon (Dongguk University)
Registration Link: here
* To participate, please submit the application form by Thursday, May 21st at 5:00 PM (KST).
* For further inquiries, please contact us at icks@snu.ac.kr or by phone at +82-2-880-9378.
안녕하세요, r/KoreanPhilosophy!
Welcome to this month’s open Q&A thread. This is your space to ask anything related to Korean philosophical traditions - no question is too basic or too niche. Some topic starters to spark discussion:
Drop your questions, half-formed thoughts, book requests, or clarifications below, beginners and long-time readers all welcome.
Happy reflecting!
Sungmoon Kim’s A Confucian Theory of Power has been published by Manchester University Press (https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526182661/). The book contains a lead essay by Kim, responses from several theorists, and Kim’s replies.
Part I Lead essay
1 A Confucian theory of power Sungmoon Kim
Part II Responses
2 Is Confucian active citizenship too demanding? Stephen C. Angle
3 “Power” as a conceptual tool: From a Confucian relational perspective Sor-hoon Tan
4 Power, responsibility, and structural injustice Sharon R. Krause
5 Confucius and America’s comic book heroes: Great power as great responsibility Rogers M. Smith
6 Responsibility and meritocracy Zhuoyao Li
7 Meritocracy, democracy, and power David B. Wong
Part III Reply
8 Reply to commentators Sungmoon Kim
안녕하십니까, 성균관대학교 유학동양한국철학과에서 학술대회 기획을 맡고 있는 김인영입니다.
2026년도 제13차 철학 학문후속세대 대학연합논단 "形而上學의 경계에서: 동아시아 철학의 형이상학적 전통과 세계 인식" 학술대회와 관련하여 발표자 모집 홍보에 대한 협조를 정중히 요청드리고자 이렇게 메일을 드리게 되었습니다.
본 학술대회는 동아시아 철학에서 형이상학이 어떻게 구성되어 왔는지를 탐구하고, 현대적 맥락에서 그 의의와 가능성을 재조명하고자 기획되었습니다. 특히 윤리와 수양론, 세계 인식과의 연관 속에서 형이상학적 사유의 의미를 함께 논의하고자 합니다.
귀 교의 대학원생 및 관련 분야 연구자분들께 본 학술대회 발표자 모집 공고를 널리 안내해 주신다면 대단히 감사하겠습니다.
홍보 문구는 다음과 같습니다.
성균관대학교 유학대학은 "동아시아 철학에서 형이상학은 어떻게 구성 되는가?"라는 문제의식 속에서 학문 후속세대 발표자를 초청합니다.
형이상학은 현대 과학의 발전 속에서 그 의의가 재검토되고 있는 바, 동아시아 철학이 여전히 의미 있는 질문을 제기할 수 있는지 탐구하고자 합니다. 특히 윤리와 수양론이 형이상학적 이해 위에서 논의되어 왔다는 점에 주목하여, 형이상학과 세계 이해의 관계를 재조명하고자 합니다.
일시: 2026년 7월 31일(금) 10:00 ~ 18:00
장소: 성균관대학교 인문사회캠퍼스 31604
신청 대상
응모 자격: 성균관대학교 유학동양철학과 대학원생 및 타대학 철학과 대학원생,
논문 모집 분야: 동아시아 철학의 형이상학에 관한 연구,
논문 모집 일정
신청 기간: 2026년 4월 27일(월) ~ 5월 10일(일),
결과 발표: 2026년 5월 15일(금),
논문 제출 일정
발표문 제출: 2026년 5월 16일(토) ~ 6월 30일(화),
이후 발표문에 대한 논평이 진행될 예정입니다.,
신청 방법: 홍보 포스터 하단의 qr코드 참조
첨부드린 홍보포스터와 함께 공지해주시면 감사하겠습니다.
바쁘신 가운데 번거로움을 드리게 되어 송구하오나, 긍정적인 검토와 협조를 부탁드립니다.
감사합니다.
We are thrilled to announce the creation of the Carter J. Eckert Book Prize in Korean Studies, made possible through the generosity of Professor Eckert's colleagues, students, family, and friends. Nominations for the inaugural prize are open until June 30, 2026.
Organized by the Korea University International Research Center for Korean Language and Culture
Dates: July 8-9
Location: Korea University Seoul Campus
Dates: July 8-9
Location: Korea University Seoul Campus
1. Overview and Purpose
The Humanities Korea 3.0 Project, The Future Turn of K-Humanities in the Age of Civilizational Transformation, administered by the Korea University International Research Center for Korean Language and Culture, invites applications for the 2026 K-Humanities Dissertation Workshop. The workshop aims to provide a platform for the next generation of scholars leading the future of K-Humanities to present, exchange, and socialize their research findings.
We welcome participation from graduate students whose research explores the directions and visions of K-Humanities in the contemporary global context. Selected chapters will receive in-depth feedback from distinguished faculty members.
2. Theme: “Migration and Mobility”
The inaugural theme of the K-Humanities Dissertation Workshop is “Migration and Mobility.” This theme builds on the first-year focus of the HK 3.0 Project — Pioneers of Korean Studies — and brings together emerging scholars engaged with related topics.
Research topics may include but are not limited to:
—Humanities of travel and tourism
—Translation of classical and modern Korean literature into other languages
—Technological media of mobility: railroads, ships, airplanes, internet networks
—Transcultural production and consumption in Korean literature, cinema, and popular music
—Studies on Korean diasporic writers
—Affective flows represented in Korean literature and film
—Sociolinguistic analyses of North Korean defectors
—War, disaster, political, religious, racial, and climate refugees, and philosophies of Homo Nomad
—Reception of Korean Studies abroad and Korean language education
3. Eligibility
(1) Graduate students (including those on leave and ABD)
(2) Individual applications only
(3) Must be able to present and discuss in Korean or English
(4) Research area: Korean literature, Korean Studies, or related humanities and social science fields
4. Application Schedule
(1) Application Period: April 27 (Mon), 2026, 9:00 AM – May 31 (Sun), 2026, 9:00 AM (KST)
(2) To apply, email to jchoi8@korea.ac.kr including the following:
①biographical statement (including the author’s full name, academic program placement, education history and current advisor’s name)
② dissertation proposal (800–1,200 characters in Korean or English)
(3) The outcome will be posted on the Institute website https://icklc.korea.ac.kr/ and notified individually via email by June 5, 2026 (tentatively)
5. Paper Submission Guidelines
(1) Deadline: June 26 (Fri), 2026, 9:00 AM
(2) Minimum 5,000 words (including references, quotations, and notes)
(3) Structured in dissertation format (including title, subtitles, citations, notes, and references)
(4) MLA, Chicago, or APA accepted
(5) Submit in MS Word format
6. Program Details
(1) Each panel: two 20-minute presentations + 20-minute faculty mentoring
(2) Includes a keynote lecture and an author lecture related to the theme
7. Support
(1) Accommodation (shared rooms) and meals will be provided during the camp
(2) Overseas participants may receive a travel grant (approx. USD 500) after review
*Contact Information
Email: jchoi8@korea.ac.kr Website: https://icklc.korea.ac.kr
