The 20th Kim Okgill Memorial Lecture
- 작성처
- Date2025.11.19
- 3564
The 20th Kim Okgill Memorial Lecture: The “New” Humanities, between Critique and Affirmation in the Era of Great Transformation
The Ewha Institute for Humanities hosted the 20th Kim Okgill Memorial Lecture on November 6 at Lee Sam-bong Hall in the Ewha Campus Complex. The lecture series was inaugurated in 2001 to pay tribute to Ewha’s 8th president Kim Okgill, who devoted her life to women’s education and social justice by way of offering the younger generations with opportunities for humanistic reflection. This year’s theme focused on exploring, from the perspective of posthuman philosophy and feminism, the challenges and possibilities faced by the humanities discipline in this era of great transformation, addressed in a special lecture by Rosi Braidotti, Distinguished University Professor Emerita at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and world-renowned scholar in posthuman studies and feminist philosophy.
The event was moderated by Ewha Professor Hyesook Jeon and opened with an address by Ae-Ryung Kim, director of the Ewha Institute for Humanities, followed by welcoming remarks from Ewha President Hyang-Sook Lee. In her opening address, Director Kim noted the unprecedented challenges in humanities education brought on by the rapid spread of AI technologies, and stressed the need for a new approach to humanistic reflection and discourse, encompassing both critique and affirmation. President Lee highlighted the long-standing tradition in the humanities at Ewha, of critically engaging with social change while upholding the dignity of humans and communities. She expressed hope that this year’s lecture would provide an opportunity for scholars to explore new humanistic perspectives for addressing the current social and ecological crises.
In her lecture, Professor Braidotti addressed the changing relationship between humans and non-human entities amidst rapid technological and ecological shifts, calling for a new level of ethics and imagination required to move beyond anthropocentric thinking, and for the critical and creative roles the humanities discipline must play in future societies. The lecture was followed by a discussion led by Professor Nam-See Kim and Professor Sangkyu Shin, then a Q&A session with the audience for an in-depth exchange of views. The second day of the program comprised a graduate colloquium titled, “Mapping the Posthuman,” to discuss collaborative research projects by graduate students from different disciplines, participated by Professor Braidotti to share her insights with Ewha’s students and researchers.