VOL.64/2023.11

[Korean Scholars ⑪]

Cultural Anthropologist, Professor Chohan Haejoang

A Devoted Intellectual of Our Time

2022.11.07

Our society is multicultural, with so many different cultures interwoven. Cultures surrounding each individual are diverse in areas such as generation, gender, and education. Looking at various cultures from a broader perspective is necessary to understand a society. Here, cultural anthropologist and professor Chohan Haejoang has made a meaningful impact on this multicultural era as a scholar that reads the generational changes and produces practical results. Following is an introduction of professor Chohan, who has been creating the venue for public debate and cooperation with each step she takes, as well as communicating with readers through various books she has written.

Towards a Harmonized World

After graduating from the Department of History at Yonsei University, professor Chohan Haejoang received a master’s degree in anthropology from the Columbia University of Missouri and a doctorate in anthropology from UCLA Graduate School. She went on to teach students at Yonsei University, Tokyo Metropolitan University in Japan, and Stanford University in the United States and is now professor emeritus at Yonsei University. Her major, cultural anthropology, is a field that observes and analyzes various cultures created by humankind and the history of humanity and compiles the results to examine the laws, regularities, and variations. In addition, she has gone beyond academic research as a scholar, teaching students and offering discourses that are essential to our society while continuing her writing activities.
Professor Chohan is also known as an activist who has made different activities necessary to our society and the generational flow. In the 1980s, she participated as a promoter of a women’s movement group called “Another Culture” and has continued to work on feminism to this day. In addition, in the 1990s, she founded the “Haja Center,” a center in Seoul that guides teenagers in choosing their path. The center plans, develops, and operates alternative pathfinding programs with an aim to create a “culture where teenagers actively engage in their future” in our society. Therefore, it works to develop sustainable career systems for adolescents. In addition to activities for teenagers, she has been actively engaged in various fields such as education, young adults, and generational change. And her colorful career is entirely reflected in her books.

The Power of Communication and Community that Changes Our Society

Professor Chohan Haejeong has been steadily writing books about adolescents and education. In her most recent co-written book, The Era of Crisis: Questioning the Future of Education (Mindle), she talks about people striving everyday to narrow the education gap created as students were prevented from going to school due to the pandemic in the past few years. In the book, she points out that adults and children, both members of the neighbourhood, should help one another for mutual development. Her appeal to the importance of communities can also be found in her other book, From Family to School, From School to Village (Alternative Culture Press). In the book, she tells heartwarming stories of people who make their neighborhood an educational hub with care and communication.
There are also books that touch on issues surrounding young adults. For example, her co-authored book The Betrayal of Efforts (Changbi) is a collection of voices she heard from many young adults as part of her study. To analyze the current issues related to young adults and to find alternatives for the future of Korean society, professor Chohan Haejoang put heads together with young researchers. Also, the book Classrooms Have Returned (Alternative Culture Press) is a collection of stories about how she came to form a compassionate class community with 103 university students living in this era of worries. It is a heartwarming record of ways to thrive in the overly-competitive era, high-risk society, and the era of high, unstable unemployment with friendship and empathy.

As we age – growing up from a teenager to a young adult, middle-aged, and elderly – our world becomes smaller. Unfortunately, there’s more we give up than we dream of, and in this narrowing world, we often target anger at ourselves. Here, professor Chohan Haejoang asks, “What kind of time are you living in right now?” through her book, The Time of a Fallen Nation (Sai Books). What kind of answers can we give to the question thrown by professor Chohan Haejoang who dreams of making this world “a place where every living organism helps each other”? Let’s comb through her books and find the right answer. There is always a path in books, and if you walk along the trail, you will find yourself searching for the answer.

Written by Choi Ha-Yeong