What is Institute of Body and Culture?
Institute of Body and Culture (IBC) was established in 2007 to study various body-related cultural phenomena academically. The concern and care of the body is at the center of our lives so that "body is the best-selling item" or “the modern buzz is about the body” is now felt like cliché. Since the early 1990s, academic activities related to the body have been very active in Academia, and there have been quite a few achievements. However, our reality is that we lack a constant, systematic and interdisciplinary collaboration. In the 21st century, the tendency of scholarship is largely the 'Consilience' which breaks the isolation of each scholarship and actively interacts with the neighboring scholarship to broaden the scope of research and create a new epistemological paradigm. Rather than having the characteristics to be dominated by one branch, several topics associated with body culture may have their meanings interpreted differently by the cross-sector and integrated studies. For these academic requests and for expanding public interest in the body, IBC was established.
Currently IBC has its headquarters in the Heavy Experimental Building at Konkuk University and has been designated and funded as a Leading Research Center by the Ministry of Education since 2017. The institute is attended by young scholars who are interested in various majors and focus on body-related studies in their respective fields. Majors also cover a broad spectrum of disciplines, including philosophy, Korean literature, English literature, historical studies, Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, criticism, plays, women's studies and medicine. Every month, it hosts regular interdisciplinary colloquium meetings with a variety of body related subjects to share academic interests and holds a book reading meeting in accordance with the direction of the institute. With a collection of colloquium, IBC publishes the Body & Culture Series once a year. The institute has also established a solid foundation for academic activities by holding conferences twice a year.
Institute of Body and Culture (IBC) was established in 2007 to study various body-related cultural phenomena academically. The concern and care of the body is at the center of our lives so that "body is the best-selling item" or “the modern buzz is about the body” is now felt like cliché. Since the early 1990s, academic activities related to the body have been very active in Academia, and there have been quite a few achievements. However, our reality is that we lack a constant, systematic and interdisciplinary collaboration. In the 21st century, the tendency of scholarship is largely the 'Consilience' which breaks the isolation of each scholarship and actively interacts with the neighboring scholarship to broaden the scope of research and create a new epistemological paradigm. Rather than having the characteristics to be dominated by one branch, several topics associated with body culture may have their meanings interpreted differently by the cross-sector and integrated studies. For these academic requests and for expanding public interest in the body, IBC was established.
Currently IBC has its headquarters in the Heavy Experimental Building at Konkuk University and has been designated and funded as a Leading Research Center by the Ministry of Education since 2017. The institute is attended by young scholars who are interested in various majors and focus on body-related studies in their respective fields. Majors also cover a broad spectrum of disciplines, including philosophy, Korean literature, English literature, historical studies, Psychoanalysis, Aesthetics, criticism, plays, women's studies and medicine. Every month, it hosts regular interdisciplinary colloquium meetings with a variety of body related subjects to share academic interests and holds a book reading meeting in accordance with the direction of the institute. With a collection of colloquium, IBC publishes the Body & Culture Series once a year. The institute has also established a solid foundation for academic activities by holding conferences twice a year.
What do we study?
The study of body culture is a study of 'embodied' identity and self of human subject. we change the axis of research from the past Cogito ergo sum "I think therefore I am(exist),” to I am(exist) because " I eat, drink, wear and work." The purpose and justification of the institute is to carry out the study which put forward the fact that we are the embodied human being. The reason why research on the body is combined with culture is because the desires and activities of the body are the driving force of culture. If cogito “I think” results in creating ideas and theories, the body’s activities produce culture and civilization, including food, clothing and shelter. The logocentric tradition is based on a paradigm in which mind dominates the body. The premise is based on the hierarchy of Reason, Will, and Body in the descending order. When a master reason commands his or her will to move, the will runs the body. But contrary to such a logocentrism, we take the physicalistic perspective that the mind is the idea of the body. Without referring to the body, we cannot understand mind. No matter how hard we try, we cannot think away toothache. The body has its own laws and truths along with its materiality. However, it does not mean that the body determines the mind in a causal way. Body and mind, though not identical, are intertwined as in chiasmus. I don't own my body, neither the body owns me.
Also eating and wearing "... In the daily horizon, we have taken for granted the distinction and hierarchy of the current society, such as beautiful and ugly body, slender body and obesity, health and disease, genuine and luxury. But it belongs to a capitalist and liberal regime, such as the cultural industry and beauty industry, not to our thought. The body which I think mine is not my own but is mortgaged to such a system. That is how far we are from our own bodies and objectified.
Our research seeks a new reflection on lookism, the appearance-oriented society in which the body is commercialized and beautified. To be more beautiful is not something deplorable. The sorry fact is that to become beautiful accompanies objectifying our body, with the result of our being alienated from the body. As such, it is necessary to subjectify our alienated body, which has been in the hands of culture industry so far. It is not to unconditionally criticize the prevailing status quo that emphasizes body, sex, and luxury. We would like to reflect on the cultural, political, and economic context of stimulating, organizing, and framing such consciousness. To achieve these goals, the institute has worked on topics such as memory, daily life, beauty, pain, suicide, youth identity, boredom, pornography, technology and post-humanism.
The study of body culture is a study of 'embodied' identity and self of human subject. we change the axis of research from the past Cogito ergo sum "I think therefore I am(exist),” to I am(exist) because " I eat, drink, wear and work." The purpose and justification of the institute is to carry out the study which put forward the fact that we are the embodied human being. The reason why research on the body is combined with culture is because the desires and activities of the body are the driving force of culture. If cogito “I think” results in creating ideas and theories, the body’s activities produce culture and civilization, including food, clothing and shelter. The logocentric tradition is based on a paradigm in which mind dominates the body. The premise is based on the hierarchy of Reason, Will, and Body in the descending order. When a master reason commands his or her will to move, the will runs the body. But contrary to such a logocentrism, we take the physicalistic perspective that the mind is the idea of the body. Without referring to the body, we cannot understand mind. No matter how hard we try, we cannot think away toothache. The body has its own laws and truths along with its materiality. However, it does not mean that the body determines the mind in a causal way. Body and mind, though not identical, are intertwined as in chiasmus. I don't own my body, neither the body owns me.
Also eating and wearing "... In the daily horizon, we have taken for granted the distinction and hierarchy of the current society, such as beautiful and ugly body, slender body and obesity, health and disease, genuine and luxury. But it belongs to a capitalist and liberal regime, such as the cultural industry and beauty industry, not to our thought. The body which I think mine is not my own but is mortgaged to such a system. That is how far we are from our own bodies and objectified.
Our research seeks a new reflection on lookism, the appearance-oriented society in which the body is commercialized and beautified. To be more beautiful is not something deplorable. The sorry fact is that to become beautiful accompanies objectifying our body, with the result of our being alienated from the body. As such, it is necessary to subjectify our alienated body, which has been in the hands of culture industry so far. It is not to unconditionally criticize the prevailing status quo that emphasizes body, sex, and luxury. We would like to reflect on the cultural, political, and economic context of stimulating, organizing, and framing such consciousness. To achieve these goals, the institute has worked on topics such as memory, daily life, beauty, pain, suicide, youth identity, boredom, pornography, technology and post-humanism.