제53차 정기학술대회 보고 Report for the 53rd Conference

The Korean Society for Indian Studies held the 53rd Regular Conference on Saturday, December 10th in Room No. 301, Cyber Building, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (Seoul). Now we are sending you a short report of the event. This conference was organized under the theme of “Journey of Indian Culture: From Past to Present”.

The conference started with the opening remarks of Prof. Jong-Chan Choi (HUFS), President of the Korean Society for Indian Studies, followed by two serial panels respectively on Indian culture and Hinduism.

The first panel (Chair: Jae-Jin Jang, Tongmyong Univ.), titled “Traces of Indian Culture”, was comprised of two presentations on the Canonization of Ancient Tamil Literary Texts (Dong-Won Lee, SNU) and Sports in Bollywood Movies (Yeon-Woo Son, BUFS). Na-Ra Yoon (JNU) and Choon-Ho Lee (HUFS) commented on the respective presentations.

The second panel (Chair: Soon-Cheul Lee, BUFS) had three presentations on the theme of “Hinduism, its Past and Present.” Three papers on the Coexistence and Conflict of Killing Animals and the Virtue of Ahiṃsā in the Vedic Ritualism: The Ambivalence of Violence and Nonviolence (Jin-Young Kim, Sogang Univ.), Life and Thoughts of a Hindu Nationalist: M. S. Golwalkar (Ji-Eun Lee, Sejong Univ.), and Ram Rajya and Gender of the BJP (Geum-Pyo Park, HUFS) were presented and Kyung-Ah Choi (Dongguk Univ.), Min-Ha Shin (HUFS), and Ha-Won Ku (SNU) commented on each paper. The audience actively participated with questions and comments from the floor.

Following the panels, the Regular Meeting was held in a year. Annual activities of the Society in 2022 were reported, followed by financial and audit reports. I appreciate the efforts of Prof. Young-Soon Yang, Officer for Finance, and Prof. Keum-Pyo Park, Auditor. During the Meeting, Prof. Eun-Gu Lee was elected as a new president of KSIS. Prof. Byung-Jin Lee was also elected as an auditor.

We thank our co-host, the Institute of Indian Studies HK+ Project, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, as well as the National Research Foundation of Korea for their generous support for the conference. We also applaud the efforts of Prof. Choon-Ho Lee, Officer for Research, and Ms. Bo-Ram Yoon, Assistant Secretary for organizing the program. Most of all we thank scholars and participants who shared their recent research and contributed with discussions and comments from various focal points, as well as members of the Society who concerned with this conference and cheered the organizers up.

You may request printed copies of the proceedings or Issue 2 of Volume 27 of the Journal of Indian Studies, which had been published at the end of October. Otherwise, they can be downloaded from our website, indology.co.kr. You will be informed of the postal delivery of JIS through further e-mail. We will welcome your contribution to the new issue of JIS which will be published on the 30th of April 2023. Submission of papers will close on the 28th of February 2023. We look forward to your support and interest in Society’s activities.

Finally, we sincerely thank all members for your continuous support, which is the basis of our Society’s operation. We have listed the Society’s bank account on our website, where you may pay your annual membership or any contribution. Receipts will be provided at the end of the year. We wish you a happy new year and look forward to seeing you again.