DATE AND TIME: Saturday, April 29 from 3 pm to 6 pm
LOCATION: Room 101 in the 대우관 본관 building in Yonsei University. It is a lecture room that looks like a stadium.
Objective
Getting the members of the 2000+ strong Critical Korean Studies Facebook group together to socialise, network, and plan future moves in this rapidly-developing field. The social space for critical engagement with society, the state and the future has developed over the last decade, in a variety of dizzying and unexpected ways, rooted in the whirls and eddies of politics, rapid social change, and shifts in the global and local economies. It is time for creators, academics, and intellectual — as well as creatively intellectual academics — to usefullyoperationalise and make socially constructive use of this new, critical space that has formed n Korean society,
Forum Style
We would like the in-person meetings to match the open and democratic feel of the Facebook group. The is often hard to do in real life, but there are models that match the new kind of community formation the Internet has offered us. The American Quakers have a pretty interesting, effective, and satisfying meeting/worship style. Ours forums will be inspired by their structure and start with a “Query” from a moderator, who will set forth things to think about that will help structure the discussion, and attendees can then choose to share/discuss/actively participate or not. Thereby, attendees can choose their level of participation without feeling pressure to speak or put on appearances. And people with more to say and share in relation to the topic at hand and simply speak “when the spirit moves you.”
Forum Topics
Our meeting will take the form of a participatory, 3-part forum that will take place in three, one-hour stages, and which allow for different levels of interaction, depending on what attendees’ individualgoals and motivations are. Led by particular moderators who will present some ground ideas to a) get and keep a conversation going, and b) set the boundaries of the conversation for the particular topic, the topics will be:
• There is a new critical space in Korea in the age of “Hell Joseon.” A discussion of the notion of Critical Korean Studies in Korea. What does it mean to be critical? What IS Critical Korean Studies? MODERATOR: Michael Hurt
• Academically, methodologically, what role does CKS play? MODERATOR: Ijin Hong
• A praktikum on praxis: How are many of you specifically doing things? Presentation/discussion of specific ideas on how to make Critical Korean Studies move forward— both in the FB group and as a field — until we convene again. Some things to talk about: Academic blogging, an online, undergraduate-friendly journal, an actual academic journal, things to get done by next meeting. MODERATOR: James Turnbull
Each moderator will give a short (10-15 minute) opening presentation that will act as the fodder for setting the terms for, starting, and continuing a true round-table discussion. But we will all be in the same big room, looking at one another. We'll break for 5 minutes each hour before starting a new stage. The goal of all this is to actually work towards some answers to the questions, even if the only actual conclusion is to think some more on things later. But since the goal of this event is actually to get networking and thinking started, while meeting some fellow thinkers in the field, we wanted this kind of unusual format. We thought that the standard meet-in-a-pub format of these kinds of Facebook groups wouldn't be appropriate because 1) they're frustrating and 2) you never get to meet and get a sense of a lot of people because you're stuck talking to whom you were accidentally and quite randomly stuck sitting next to. So, we thought a format that gets people talking and allows everyone to see and hear everyone else would be better.
And you can do the socializing "oh, I wanted to talk with you more about what you said" thing afterward, like at dinner, which will also be decided by the group, which will move to wherever at 6.
During the meetup, no food or drinks will be provided, because we don't roll large like that yet.