 Professor
Im Dong-kwon is a pioneer in the field of Korean folklore, and
is the primary figure in East Asian folklore studies. At the
young age of 28, he became the primary lecturer for the first
folklore course offered in South Korea at the Kukhak University
in 1954. His research that began with the objective of reestablishing
a national identity in the wake of the Korean War raised the
awareness of Korean culture and fostered scholarship that established
Korean folklore studies as an independent discipline.
While teaching
and conducting research as a professor at the Sorabol Art College
and Chung-Ang University, Professor Im served simultaneously
as the Chairman of the Korean Folklore Society and the Society
of Korean Folk Song. Further, he worked to discover and protect
cultural treasures while serving as the President of the Baekje
Culture Research Institute and the Executive Director of the
Foundation for the Preservation of Cultural Properties, Korea.
For these stellar achievements over many years, Professor Im
has been awarded many national honors, including the Order of
Culture.
Professor
Im has not limited his research to South Korea, but extended
it to Japan and China. He has conducted research into cultural
interchange between South Korea, Japan, and China using the
methods of comparative folklore, thus elucidating the unique
aspects of Korean folklore. He is acclaimed as the preeminent
scholar in East Asian folklore, having served in such positions
as the Counselor to the Korean Comparative Folklore Society,
at which he assumed the post in 1996. He has also trained other
scholars in the field of folklore studies, who have since been
engaged in many different activities in South Korea and Japan.
Originally
specializing in traditional folk music of South Korea, Professor
Im's interests have gradually expanded to cover a broad range
of fields, including traditional oral literature, folkloric
performance art, rituals, folk beliefs, and shamanism. He has
published his research results in approximately 50 books that
he has either written himself, written in collaboration with
others, or edited. Of these, "Kankoku no Minzoku Taikei",
Vol.1-5 and "Kankoku no Minzoku to Densho" have been
translated into Japanese. One of his best-known early works,
"Korean Folktales", is widely read throughout the
world, as it was translated into German and English in the 1970s
and into Japanese in 1995.
Professor
Im, who spent his junior high school years in Tokyo during World
War II, has close ties with Japanese folklore studies. In 1963,
before the normalization of relations between Japan and South
Korea, he began 40 years of folklore studies throughout Japan
from Hokkaido to Okinawa, conducting joint research with Japanese
scholars. He wrote "Kan-Nichi Minzoku Bunka no Hikaku Kenkyu"
in Japanese himself, while Japanese translators worked on his
Korean texts for such books as "Nihon no Naka no Kudara
Bunka" and "Chosen Tsushin-shi to Bunka Dempa".
These works are not simply comparative research studies of Japanese
and Korean culture. They have been highly acclaimed for adding
new interpretations to existing theories in Japanese cultural
research by examining Japanese folklore from the perspective
of South Korea.
In this way,
Professor Im has conducted comprehensive comparative research
into the folklore of East Asia with a focus on South Korea,
and has contributed to the furtherance of joint research conducted
by South Korea, Japan, and China as an internationally respected
academic. For these achievements as a luminary in the field
of East Asian folklore studies, Professor Im is highly suited
to receive the Grand Prize of the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prizes. |
Lecture Archive
