The Department of Anthropology BrainKorea21 Plus Team of Seoul National University, was launched in March 2016 under the name of 「Graduate Program for Cross-cultural Research and Cultural Commons in East Asia」. Our team was reselected in September 2020 for Phase 4 of the BK21 project and now operates under the new title, 「Graduate Program of Culture Experts for Future-oriented Mutual Understanding in Hyper-connected East Asia」. We aim to accumulate specialized knowledge by comparatively studying on cultures of East Asian countries, and to foster professionalized experts who can diagnose, plan and utilize their expertise for public interests. In order to cultivate such "Experts for Hyper-connceted East Asia (Ex-HCEA),“ our project team pursues education and research with the creation of field-based knowledge.
We concentrate on an extended definition of East Asia, which includes both Northeast and Southeast Asia. This is to meet the demands of the times where material and personnel resource exchange between the Northeast and Southeast Asian countries have expanded significantly. Thus, recognition conversion is required in terms of acknowledging East Asia as a singular regional unit in a broader sense. The team seeks for contributing to communication and understanding of the East Asian world by exploring the multiple modern cultural phenomena, which are being realized in various forms of traditions and modernity in each East Asian country.
The 'Platform for Hyper-connected East Asia' (P-HCEA), provided in this web site, is largely composed of the Education Center, Research Center and International Center. It provides information exchange between professors, graduate students and the public about various education and research activities conducted by the project team. Plans for utilizing this web site as an online platform for active communication are also being prepared, in addition to its information exchange function. We ask for your interest and support toward our activities.
Kang Yoonhee,
Director of BrainKorea21 Plus Team, Professor in the Department of Anthropology,
Seoul National University