Speaker: Edward Chung, Professor, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada

Moderator: Seong Uk Kim, Assistant Professor of Korean Religions and Culture, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures, Columbia University

Hagok was the most eminent Confucian thinker-scholar in the unorthodox school of Yangmyeonghak (陽明學) in 18th-century Joseon Korea. He is as important as Korea’s three famous Confucian thinkers such as Yi Toegye (1501–1570), Yi Yulgok (1536–1584), and Jeong Dasan (1762–1836). After briefly introducing Hagok and his most important work, Joneon 存言 (Testament), Chung will discuss Hagok’s reformist and thought-provoking interpretation of “self-cultivation” from a creative standpoint of Mencius and Yangming philosophy and also in criticism of Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism and Korean Seongnihak (Zhu Xi school). It will be done textually, philosophically, and historically, together with hermeneutical, comparative, and contemporary perspectives.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Korean Research.