WITH the goal to promote Korean language education and Korean studies in the Philippines, the University of the Philippines will co-organize a three-day Philippine Korean Studies Symposium.

The university’s Department of Linguistics will partner with the UP Korea Research Center to hold the 8th PKSS in an online conference on January 21, 28, and February 4.

With the theme “Korean Public Diplomacy in Time of Pandemic: Focusing on Korea-Philippines Bilateral Relations,” this event intends to elevate the level of interest among Filipino scholars in learning Korea-related topics so as to “promote cross-cultural understanding and cooperation.”

Lecture sessions and student presentations

This year’s PKSS invited two speakers from two educational institutions in South Korea to deliver keynote lectures about Korean culture, economics, history, and foreign relations.

During the first day of the symposium, Korea Development Institute’s associate professor Dr. Changkeun Lee will present among participants with his lecture titled, “Rise of K-Culture: History and Economics.”

In this discourse, Lee will tackle the significant role of the rise of Korean culture in the global arena that directly influenced the country’s economic development.

The first lecture also explored how KPop fandoms had been utilized in the political scene. As KPop idols have significant impact on their fans, KPop has been known as an impressive vehicle to deploy these artists’ influence in political discourse including human rights, education, and cultural appropriation to name a few.

This discussion will be followed by another lecture during the second day of the conference with Dr. Jaechun Kim, a professor of international relations at Sogang University’s Graduate School of International Studies. 

He will address how the US-China competition impacts global order and how it might affect globalization in his lecture titled, “The Future of International Order and US-China Competition.”

The lecture sessions will be held on January 21 and 28 respectively and each session will be followed by a discussion stage.

After each lecture and discussion, students of various universities in the Philippines will take turns in presenting their studies, research, and other works related to Korean studies.

During the final day of the symposium, a workshop for Korean-as-a-foreign-language educators will be facilitated by two of the Department’s Korean language lecturers, Maria Concepcion Loren Chua and Marco Angulo, and MA Ling student Sarah Eve Perlawan to name a few.

The lectures and research presentations will be live-streamed on the Facebook page and YouTube channel of UP KRC. Recorded videos of the symposium will also be uploaded in the department’s YouTube channel.