Walden Korea Lecture Series

International School of Philosophy in Asia (ISPA)

Slavoj Žižek “Are There Still Masters or Are There Only Servants of Servants?”

10 am (EST-U.S & Canada), Wed, December 21

Webinar Lecture

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86835446597?pwd=WnpZSFgyc3c2Zkc2elhHajhYL04xZz09

Meeting ID: 868 3544 6597

Passcode: 4343

All are welcome to join by video or audio

Dr. Žižek will take questions from audience

Email: info@waldenkorea.org

Host: Walden Korea

Sponsor: Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation

The Walden Korea Lecture Series brings together leading scholars and public intellectuals to engage the most urgent questions of our time. In the 21st century, global mobility and the rise of the “global value chain” have turned large parts of Asia and beyond into vast, interconnected production zones, reshaping global capitalism. Accelerating industrialization has fueled the growth of major metropolitan centers while intensifying environmental degradation, climate crisis, and climate change.

As regional economies have been integrated into global markets, local lifeworlds have been reconfigured and increasingly subordinated to the norms of a monetary regime. In this sense, Asia can no longer be understood as merely a particular geographic region. It has become a key site through which the dynamics of global capitalism can be examined as a universal condition. For this reason, the lecture series takes Asia as a critical vantage point for developing what it calls a “planetary philosophy,” a framework for thinking across borders, systems, and scales.

At the same time, rapid technological development continues to detach certainty from lived, spatio-temporal experience, while algorithmic forms of intelligence increasingly shape how we perceive, decide, and know. The energy infrastructures that sustain contemporary civilization, from coal and oil to electricity, have enabled extraordinary growth, yet they also constrain the imagination and obstruct the possibility of genuinely different futures. But the future is never simply ahead of us; it is always tied to rupture in the present. Alternative possibilities are already embedded within today’s reality as latent potentials.

From this perspective, the Walden Korea Lecture Series, the inaugural program of the International School of Philosophy in Asia, invites all who are interested in challenging normative perceptions of the contemporary world and seeking alternative approaches to prevailing knowledge systems.

The Walden Korea Lecture Series is the first program launched under the International School of Philosophy in Asia (ISPA) and is funded by the Jeju 4·3 Peace Foundation. The opening lecture will be delivered by Slavoj Žižek, the Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist, and public intellectual. Žižek serves as International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, is a Visiting Professor at New York University, and is a Senior Researcher at the University of Ljubljana’s Department of Philosophy.

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ Korea Center hosts, in cooperation with Walden Korea and The Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation, a featured conference entitled U.S.-Korea Relations: Retrospective on the Jeju April 3 Incident, Human Rights, and Alliance. The conference will bring together U.S. and South Korean scholars and experts to address various facts and controversies related to unresolved history, truth, justice, and reconciliation in the context of the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance

NTRODUCTIONS

Sue Mi Terry
Director of the Asia Program and the Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy

Ko Hee-bum

Chairman, The Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation

PANELISTS

Kathleen Stephens

President and CEO, The Korea Economic Institute of America; Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea

Sung-Yoon Lee

Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and Assistant Professor, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Suyeon Yang

Chairwoman, Walden Korea; Chairwoman, Jeju 4.3 Memorial and Families Association of the U.S.

Jo-hoon Yang

Member, The National Committee for Investigation of the Truth about the Jeju 4.3 Incident

John Merrill

Visiting Scholar, Johns Hopkins University; Former Chief of the Northeast Asia Division, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State

Hojun Huh

Head of Research, The Jeju 4.3 Research Institute

Charles Kraus

Charles Kraus is the Deputy Director of the History and Public Policy Program at the Wilson Center.

Bruce Cumings (invited)

Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History and the College, University of Chicago

Agenda

12:30pm – 12:45pm ET

Welcome Remarks

Dr. Sue Mi Terry
Director, Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy, Wilson Center
Mr. Ko Hee-bum
Chairman, The Jeju 4.3 Peace Foundation

12:45pm – 02:15pm ET

Panel I

Moderator
Dr. Sue Mi Terry
Director, Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy, Wilson Center

Panelists

Amb. Kathleen Stephens
President and CEO, The Korea Economic Institute of America; Former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea

Dr. Sung-Yoon Lee
Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and Assistant Professor, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Ms. Suyeon Yang
Chairwoman, Walden Korea; Chairwoman, Jeju 4.3 Memorial and Families Association of the U.S.

Mr. Jo-hoon Yang
Member, The National Committee for Investigation of the Truth about the Jeju 4.3 Incident

Discussion and Q&A

02:15pm – 02:25pm ET

Coffee Break
Coffee and light refreshments will be provided

02:25pm – 03:55pm ET

Panel II

Moderator
Dr. Sung-Yoon Lee
Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and Assistant Professor, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

Panelists
Dr. John Merrill
Visiting Scholar, Johns Hopkins University; Former Chief of the Northeast Asia Division, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State

Dr. Hojun Huh
Head of Research, The Jeju 4.3 Research Institute

Dr. Charles Kraus
Deputy Director, History and Public Policy Program, Wilson Center

Dr. Bruce Cumings (invited)
Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History and the College, University of Chicago

Discussion and Q&A

03:55pm – 04:30pm ET

Reception
Reception location TBC.

04:30pm – 04:30pm ET

Adjournment
Thank you for attending

04:30pm – 06:00pm ET

Private Roundtable: U.S.-South Korea Dialogue (By-invitation-only)

Ms. Jae-Jung Lee, Member of the ROK National Assembly
Mr. Han-kyu Kim, Member of the ROK National Assembly

Co-Moderators:
Dr. Sue Mi Terry and Dr. Chung-In Moon

‘The History You Never Heard’ is a long-term Walden Korea project dedicated to informing the American public about the 1948 Jeju 4·3 Uprising and Massacre in South Korea and the realities of state violence. The project includes seminars and academic programs held across the United States, as well as publications that raise awareness of state crimes and the importance of truth, justice, and reconciliation.

The massacre of more than 30,000 civilians on Jeju Island began in April 1948, during the period when South Korea was governed by the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK). At that time, the United States exercised operational control over South Korea’s armed forces. Historical records indicate U.S. involvement in suppressing the uprising, yet few Americans are aware of this history. We call on the United States to release additional classified documents and to cooperate with further fact-finding efforts. The truth must be told. Nation-states sometimes commit grave errors, and the United States is no exception. Decisions made by the U.S. in Korea more than 70 years ago still cast a long shadow over the politics of the Korean Peninsula today.

Meet Our Truth Storytellers

HyungJin Kim

HyungJin Kim is a member of the Walden Korea Planning Committee and a board member of WeHope, a human rights organization dedicated to the victims of Japan’s “comfort women” system. She has worked for years to advance accurate and just narratives in the United States.

HyungJin presented her research on the Jeju 4·3 Uprising and Massacre at the Walden Korea International Strategic Forum, held in September. She graduated from Yew Chung International School of Shanghai and is completing a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs at Northeastern University. She co-authored an article on nationalism scheduled for publication in Ethnicities (2022). She has also worked at Harvard Medical School as an education technology, media, and design assistant.

HyungJin is currently engaged in efforts to investigate and illuminate the truth of Jeju 4·3. Through ‘The History You Never Heard,’ she will help bring wider public attention in the United States to the history and legacy of the Jeju massacre.

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee is a scholar of Korean and East Asian studies and a specialist on North Korea. He is the Kim Koo–Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies and an assistant professor at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a Faculty Associate in the Program on U.S.–Japan Relations at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. He has advised senior officials in the U.S. government. In 2013, The Guardian described him as “among the most insightful and prescient chroniclers.”

This event features a presentation by Professor Sung-Yoon Lee.

Suyeon Yang

Suyeon Yang is a journalist, organizer, and educator based in Boston, Massachusetts. She founded the Jeju April 3rd Memorial and Victims’ Families Association of the U.S. (43jeju.com) and Walden Korea to advance remembrance of state violence and to promote the values of human rights, peace, and public education.

Yang lost her grandfather and two uncles in the April 3rd Uprising and Massacre, and the tragedy remains a profound intergenerational trauma in her family history. Her goal is to broaden public understanding of Jeju 4·3 in the United States and to pursue truth-telling and accountability, including a formal apology from the U.S. government.

Her personal motto is “Creatio ex nihilo” (Latin for “creation out of nothing”). She approaches social and human questions through an interdisciplinary, arts-informed lens.

‘The History You Never Heard’ is a long-term Walden Korea project that informs the American public about the truth of the 1948 Jeju 4·3 Uprising and Massacre in South Korea and the harms of state violence. The project includes seminars and academic programs held across the United States, as well as publications that raise awareness of state crimes and the importance of truth, justice, and reconciliation.

The massacre of more than 30,000 civilians on Jeju Island began in April 1948, during the period when South Korea was governed by the United States Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK). At that time, the United States exercised operational control over South Korea’s armed forces. Historical records indicate U.S. involvement in the suppression of the uprising, yet few Americans are aware of this history. We call on the United States to release additional classified documents and to cooperate with further fact-finding efforts. The truth must be told. Nation-states sometimes make grave mistakes, and the United States is no exception. Decisions made by the U.S. in Korea more than 70 years ago still cast a long shadow over the politics of the Korean Peninsula today.

Meet Our Truth Storyteller

Attorney Dennis Hogan

Our first Truth Storyteller is Attorney Dennis Hogan, who has lived in Nashua, New Hampshire, his entire life.

Attorney Hogan became interested in the Jeju 4·3 Uprising and Massacre after watching our International Forum. A lifelong student of history, he is committed to helping bring the truth of Jeju 4·3 to the American public. In a short video, he shares why the story matters to him and introduces the Nashua region.

We invite you to become a Truth Storyteller. Share with your neighbors the realities faced by victims of state violence—and a message grounded in human dignity, truth, and remembrance.