Translated from the Korean original.
Dear members of the International Association of Comparative Korean Studies — I am Lee Jae-bok, and it is my honor to serve as the association's eighteenth president.
This summer's heat waves and tropical nights have lingered unusually long. The heat continues well past Cheoseo, with Chuseok fast approaching. We now live in an era in which anxiety about the climate has become part of daily life. In this time of turbulence and transition, my first thought is for your health and well-being.
The unprecedented pandemic and climate change are reshaping human society as a whole. The world of virtual reality, built on digital technologies that accelerated after the pandemic, now has us living within a single net, while rapid climate change demands reflection on — and alternatives to — a civilization founded on science and technology. The collision of these opposing values, civilization and its negation, is one face of the existence revealed by the 'here and now.' This turbulence calls for concrete and searching reflection. Because it is a task shared by all humanity, beyond any individual or group, it requires a global outlook and a way of reaching the whole through difference and comparison. In this it speaks to the very identity of our association, whose motto has long been a global Korean studies — and it offers us a welcome opportunity to renew that identity and to leap forward.
I extend my deep gratitude to my predecessor President Oh Hyung-yup, to all former presidents, and to the officers who have devoted themselves to the association. IACKS has pursued interdisciplinary, integrative research centered on the comparison of literatures and cultures at the international level. Together with the eighteenth executive board, I will do my utmost to carry this tradition forward and develop it further. As we gather specialists of many fields under the banner of Korean studies, we will attend carefully not only to scholarly activity but to exchange and communication within and beyond the association, so that this breadth can be brought fully to bear.
Our present situation holds both crisis and opportunity. On one side, voices everywhere speak of the contraction and transformation of the humanities; on the other, the spread of Hallyu and K-culture has opened wide-ranging discussion of music, film, television, art, literature, thought, and food. That spread has been turning the inferiority and deference long cast over Korean culture into confidence and a sense of agency. These changes carry real significance for the direction and identity of an association devoted to comparative Korean studies. For Korean culture and Korean studies to remain competitive and sustainable at a truly global level, they must rest above all on a scholarly foundation that systematizes them and gives them discursive form.
Seen in this light, the standing and role of IACKS matter more than ever. We will concentrate on finding the ways and means by which the association can lead. For the role our association must play in the 'here and now,' and for its sustainable future, I look forward to your active participation and unstinting affection.
I wish you good health and peace to you and your families. Thank you.
Lee Jae-bok, 18th President, International Association of Comparative Korean Studies