KU College of Liberal Arts experiments with a new way of teaching the humanities and the classics
The production of content for “Goseongbangga,” an online education program, kicks off.

Korea University College of Liberal Arts has launched an experiment in humanities and classics education.

As demand for 'untact' education has been growing recently, Korea University College of Liberal Arts (Dean Lee Hyung-dae) started an online humanities and classics education program entitled "Goseongbangga: deep reflection, beautiful resonance,” a section of Veritas Forum. The program is part of its university innovation support project and is open to students from the College of Liberal Arts, regardless of the courses they are taking.

Goseongbangga's output, produced in collaboration with the KU Media Center, consists of several lecture series, each of which comprises four 10- to 15-minute videos in which College of Liberal Arts professors introduce Asian and Western classics. Professors who do not usually give public lectures or appear on TV take part in the program as lecturers, in this way showing their enthusiasm for online humanities and classics education.

During the Spring 2021 semester, a total of five videos will be produced, namely “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber” presented by Department of History Professor Choi Ho-keun, “The Collection of Jo Ji-hoon” presented by Department of Korean Language and Literature Professor Kim Jong-hoon, “The Tale of Igor's Campaign” presented by Department of Russian Language and Literature Professor Choi Jeong-Hyun, “Byeongja Diary” presented by Department of Korean Language and Literature Professor Chung Woo-bong, and “Shosetsu Shinzui by Tsubouchi Shoyo” presented by Department of Japanese Language and Literature Professor Jung Byeong-ho. More videos will be added subsequently.

Goseongbangga videos present the background behind the classics, explicate key concepts, and give a sense of literary and other problems that transcend time. The program is expected to help students better understand classics, as it invites them to think about current issues in light of these seminal texts.

In the second semester, the “Humanities and Classics seminar” course will use videos from this program as part of its curriculum. An official from the university innovation support project of Korea University College of Liberal Arts said, “The online humanities and classics education program Goseongbanga, on the basis of online videos and offline classes, is an experiment in the methodology of humanities and classics education, and will contribute greatly to an enhanced student understanding of the humanities.”

Goseongbangga is due to be launched in February on Mungwang, Korea University College of Liberal Arts’ online education platform, which is under development now.