Three Foundational Keywords

1. 01 Civilizational Transformation

   First, “civilizational transformation” expresses the recognition of the historical moment in which Korean humanities find themselves, as well as the new academic and practical challenges demanded of the humanities today. Since modernity, the vision of growth and development proposed in the West, together with the belief in progress, has exercised discursive hegemony as a “global standard” at the level of civilization. Yet crisis discourses now widely circulating—such as the Anthropocene, climate change, and compound crises—are calling for a fundamental shift in the ways we understand and view human civilization. “Civilizational transformation” points to the global character of the extraordinary crises confronting human civilization and reveals the need for a fundamental transformation of the humanities in order to address them.

2. 02 K -Humanities

   Second, “K-Humanities” refers to the subject capable of exploring and practicing civilizational transformation as a task of our time. In order to respond actively to the global demand for reflection on civilizational transformation, Korean humanities must pursue universal research capacities and practical possibilities that can extend beyond area studies toward the world. K-Humanities, in this sense, refers to the performative subject and its practical engagement constituted in the process of establishing civilizational transformation as a central agenda of Korean studies.

3. 03 Futuristic Turn

   Third, “futuristic turn” refers to the practical objectives and methodological orientation of the research undertaken by our consortium. Korean humanities now face the new challenge of recognizing the global crisis at the level of civilizational history and of developing humanities discourses capable of addressing it. In order to enhance the international influence and practical engagement of Korean humanities, our consortium reconsiders Korean humanities from the perspective of “a turn to the future.” To this end, we critically reflect on the achievements and limitations of the various discursive turns proposed within Western humanities—such as the material turn, speculative turn, digital turn, and nonhuman turn—and seek to propose new practical and discursive directions for Korean humanities. The K-Humanities proposed by our consortium seeks, on the one hand, to practice the decolonization of scholarship and realize the publicness of the humanities by critically relativizing the universality of Western humanities, while, on the other, aspiring to become a new humanities reference model capable of leading the future of civilizational transformation.

Sub-Projects and Research Questions

1. What are the contemporary crises driving today’s civilizational transformation, and what kind of imagination of connection and solidarity within the humanities is required to address them?

   Crisis and ConnectionMORE

2. What alternative discourses from East Asia seek new transformations beyond the limits of modernity, and what are the geopolitical conditions of the Korean Peninsula that gave rise to them?

   History and PlaceMORE

3. What are the limitations of the concepts and values that have produced today’s civilizational crises, and what alternative values and leading concepts can renew them?

   Concepts and ValuesMORE

4. What intellectual resources contributed to the formation of Korean humanities, and what systems of knowledge and institutions are required for a public turn in Korean studies?

   Knowledge and InstitutionsMORE

5. What educational and canonical systems are needed for Korean humanities to establish themselves as foundations of culture and the liberal education of the public, and how can they be connected with the worldwide popularity of contemporary K-Culture?

   Culture and CanonMORE

6. How can the humanities respond to the emergence of new science and technologies represented by digital technologies and AI, and what methodologies of convergence and media use are required for this purpose?

   Convergence and MediaMORE

The research questions and sub-projects presented above are mutually interconnected and have been designed to promote active communication and collaborative research among the respective research teams. Each sub-project reflects the research achievements accumulated by the participating research institutes as well as their distinctive characteristics, while also being structured to ensure the systematic coherence and completeness of K-Humanities capable of carrying out a futuristic turn in an era of civilizational transformation.