SDF

KIM Hong-Jung majored in sociology as an undergraduate and earned his Ph.D. at EHESS (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, or School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in Paris. His specialty areas are social theory and cultural sociology.

The problems of the heart – “heart” here understood as the energy of our manifold desires and beliefs – have become a topic of increasing academic interest. The heart is a force with the power to shape reality. KIM Hong-Jung understands his primary task as a sociologist to be the study and exploration of how this force, like the wind, compels people to action, creation, and destruction, and how this results in changes on a societal level. It is this theoretical lens through which he examines the yearning for authenticity that drove the so-called 386 Generation of Koreans [born in the ‘60s and associated with the pro-democracy student activist movement] in the years following the pro-democracy movement, as well as the survivalist yearnings of 21st-century millennials.

More recently, Hong-Jung’s interests have expanded beyond human society to the environment and non-human areas. From the Anthropocene Era to post-humanism, he seeks to explore and understand the problems that will affect the societies of tomorrow.