Wonkwang University Selected for 'Humanities in the Age of Globalization' Academic Conference Support Project

Wonbulgyo Institute for Religious Studies' Theme: "Exploring Geoscience Beyond Boundaries"

Earth Science Reading Group Photo by Wonkwang University

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Geon-ju] The Wonkwang University Wonbulgyo Thought Research Institute has been selected for the Korea Research Foundation Academic Conference Support Project and will hold an academic conference in February 2021 under the theme "Humanities in the Era of Globalization: Exploring Geoscience Beyond Boundaries."

According to Wonkwang University on the 10th, the "Humanities in the Era of Globalization" addressed at this academic conference refers to 21st-century humanities required in the climate crisis and pandemic era, beyond the 20th-century industrialization era humanities. In the West, since the 1990s, the academic trend centered on the concept of "globalization," discussing sociology, cultural studies, women's studies, and anthropology on a global scale, has been named "geoscience" or "global humanities."

Representative research works related to geoscience include Thomas Berry's "The Dream of the Earth" (1988, Earth Theology), Jonathan Friedman's "Cultural Identity in the Age of Globalization" (1994, Global Cultural Studies), Ulrich Beck's "The Path to Globalization" (1997, Geoscience), among many others. To prepare for the academic conference, the Wonbulgyo Thought Research Institute has been conducting a "Geoscience Reading Group," reading one geoscience-related book weekly since April.

The academic conference on "Humanities in the Era of Globalization," scheduled to be held at Wonkwang University, is being prepared as a Korea-Japan joint academic conference covering a total of eight fields, including Global Humanities (Jo Seong-hwan) and Global Civilization Studies (Heo Nam-jin).

The Wonbulgyo Thought Research Institute at Wonkwang University was selected as a university-focused research institute in 2016 and has been conducting a project titled "Reconstructing the Publicness of Korean Religions in the Process of Modern Civilization Reception." While researching modern Korea's "Gaebyeokhak," it planned this academic conference to develop it into "geoscience" required in the 21st century. It stated that this is a part where the birth of K-Humanities is expected to follow K-Quarantine.

Meanwhile, the Korea Research Foundation Academic Conference Support Project is implemented to support academic societies in holding academic conferences so that they can be used as spaces to create, process, and deliver knowledge and information demanded by society, thereby strengthening knowledge and information exchange and cooperation among domestic and international researchers and enhancing the competitiveness of academic societies.

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