The 3rd Annual Humanities Festival was held from June 27 to 30 at SSU Chapel in Han Kyung-chik Memorial Hall. A total of four sessions were held during the festival, one per day. Each session was two to three hours long, featured renowned speakers, and had an enthusiastic audience. The main theme was 'the power to think, the power to act,' which was interpreted differently by the speakers, who presented to the audience what they thought was needed for the present college students to know about the given theme, through computer presentations.
The first-day speaker was a renowned philosopher, Prof. Kang Shin-ju. He specializes in the study of 'Chuang-tzu,' an ancient Chinese philosopher. He has published many books and delivers public lectures to promote the joy of reading and his ideas. The main theme of his lecture was 'What is philosophy?' Prof. Kang simply stated that philosophy is about learning a broad collection of all things informative, and that it is up to the audience to establish their own collection of philosophies regarding seeing the world as they see fit. Professor Kang's logical reasoning and excellent use of figures of speech kept the audience mesmerized throughout the lecture.
The second-day speaker was a professor from Hanyang Univ., Yu Young-man. He currently teaches at Hanyang Univ., writes books, and gives free lectures outside the campus. For his lecture, he focused on the theme 'A curve beats a line,' and he talked about 'warped thinking.' He also talked about his new book, <Curve Wins>, and made some comments on it, particularly with regard to how warped thinking can change the lives of countless people.
The third-day speaker was Kim Han-jung from the EBS program 'e-Knowledge Channel.' He was the program director (PD) of the whole show and has been the PD since the event's conception. He talked about the power of the media by pointing out that he makes clips no longer than five minutes that can touch the hearts of many people. By using this method, he said that everyone can utilize their abilities to the maximum to influence people all over the world.
The final-day speaker was Ha Jee-hyun from the Department of Psychology of Konkuk Univ. He is a writer of many books, including <Restaurant for Healing at Night>, <Communication & Consent>, <Reconfiguration of Relationship>, and <The Psychology of the City>. Through his works, he became famous for explaining the meaning of the psychological analysis of human minds to non-experts. He talked about how life works based on his experience and on the counseling that he has conducted with many other college students. He mainly focused on how college students should think about their life path and responsibilities.
Shin Myong-jong (ST Reporter)
shinmyong91@ssu.ac.kr
