Yersu Kim

Yersu Kim (Kim Yŏ-su, 김여수 金麗壽, 1936–present), one of the earliest Korean graduates of Harvard College, was an eminent professor of philosophy at Seoul National University from 1977 to 1998 and the director of UNESCO’s Division of Philosophy and Ethics between 1995 and 2000.[1] He led the Korean National Commission for UNESCO as Secretary General from 2000 to 2004. He then helped establish the Global Academy for Future Civilization at Kyung Hee University, serving as its Chancellor until 2016.

Kim was born on December 30, 1936 in Kaesŏng, a city known for its long history and vibrant trade economy located right about the current-day 38th parallel. His father, Kim Yu-t’aek (김유택 金裕澤, 1911–1975), was a native of Haeju in South Hwanghae Province who became a prominent figure in the banking sector. After earning a law degree from Kyushu Imperial University, Kim’s father began working at the Bank of Chosŏn (Chosŏn Ŭnhaeng) from 1938. Kim’s mother, Park Heung-duk (Pak Hŭng-dŭk, 박흥득 朴興得), was the daughter of one of the wealthiest merchants of Kaesŏng. Kim was born in 1936—a year after their marriage—as the first of the six children they would have together.

Upon graduating from Samgwang Elementary School in Seoul (Samgwang Kungmin Hakkyo 三光國民學校), Kim gained admission to Kyŏnggi Middle School (Kyŏnggi Chung Hakkyo 京畿中學校), which was the most prestigious middle school in Korea at the time, as a proud member of its 51st cohort in 1949.[2] After only one year, however, the Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950, uprooting people’s lives in the peninsula—including that of Kim and his family. Although Seoul was recaptured by South Korean and United Nations forces in the fall, the swift southbound advance of North Korean and Chinese troops in January 1951 forced Kim’s family to flee to Pusan, which had become South Korea’s temporary capital and safe haven for refugees. Following their family’s relocation, Kim’s father rose quickly in rank at the Bank of Korea (Han’guk Ŭnhaeng), which was the central bank of Korea, becoming its governor in 1951. The Bank of Korea provided Kim’s father and family with a spacious official residence, allowing Kim to live in relative comfort during the war. Kim’s home, as a result, became a gathering spot for his friends. Kim’s mother was always generous, preparing hearty snacks for Kim and his friends whenever they came over after school.

Kim was able to resume his education when Kyŏnggi Middle School reopened in Pusan in April 1951.[3] Teachers and administrators set up large tents to use as open-air classrooms on a cabbage patch at the foot of Kudŏk Mountain. Under the guidance of their teachers, the students devoted much time to beautify their make-shift school in order to create some sense of normalcy amidst the war. Reuniting with his teachers and classmates after being separated in Seoul felt like a miracle for Kim. He cherished the time he had in the cabbage patch school with his friends. Classes were centered around the basic subjects, such as mathematics, language arts, and English. Kim studied English with particular vigor, even committing himself to burning the pages of the English-Korean Concise Dictionary after memorizing them and swallowing the ashes—a ritual that became popular among the Kyŏnggi Middle School students at the time. Kim graduated from Kyŏnggi Middle School in the spring of 1952 at the top of his class.[4]

As he contemplated the next steps in his education, Kim began to consider the possibility of studying abroad in the United States for high school after learning that a Kyŏnggi student who was a year older was attending Monterey Union High School in California. Kim decided to pursue a high school education in the United States with the long-term goal of going to Harvard University and becoming a lawyer to serve South Korea. With the help of family and friends, he was able to gain admission to Monterey Union High School, find an American family who would sponsor him, and prepare for his interview at the American embassy for a visa. Since the age for military conscription was eighteen, Kim could leave Pusan for California during the war. Leaving behind his parents and younger siblings, Kim arrived in San Francisco on December 30, 1952 on his sixteenth birthday. The wife and children of his American sponsor, Captain Howard Brown, greeted him upon his arrival. Mrs. Brown was an English teacher at Monterey Union High School. After settling into the Browns’ home, Kim entered Monterey Union High School as a sophomore in January 1953. The school’s beautiful campus stood in stark contrast with Kyŏnggi Middle School’s wartime, open-air classrooms. Yet, the student community was not entirely unfamiliar. Kim was surprised to find out there were many second-generation Japanese American students. He learned later that Monterey was home to a considerable population of Japanese Americans whose history could be traced back to Japanese fishermen immigrants who arrived in California at the turn of century. There were also some familiar faces from Kyŏnggi Middle School, such as Im Chun-il and Park Kwangjai (biography available here) who were both one year older than Kim.

Kim graduated from Monterey Union High School as valedictorian in the spring of 1955. He was admitted to Harvard College with a full scholarship. Before setting off to college, Kim had the precious opportunity to go on a road trip across the United States with his mother who had traveled from Korea for his graduation.

Life at Harvard

After the three-week long trip, Kim arrived in Cambridge and moved into Thayer Hall in Harvard Yard where he spent his freshman year. The next year, he was assigned to a beautiful unit at Adams House with a fireplace and overlooking St. Paul Church. The four years at Harvard shaped Kim’s life in profound ways. Academically, Harvard’s curriculum broadened Kim’s intellectual horizon while fostering his discovery of philosophy as a life-long passion. When Kim entered Harvard in 1955, the General Education program was in its early years of launching.[5] It had been only seven years since the College approved a program for General Education under the leadership of then President James B. Conant (term from 1933–1953) in 1949.[6] As he fulfilled the GenEd requirements, Kim took courses in diverse areas of study, including the Natural Science II course with Professor Leonard K. Nash and Social Science II course with Professor Samuel Beer. Kim found the first-year GenEd writing course to be particularly helpful. As recounted in his memoir, Kim put in a great deal of effort for this class and, as a result, saw vast improvement in his ability to articulate his thoughts in writing eloquently.

As he balanced fulfilling the GenEd requirements and exploring his academic interests through electives, Kim made the fateful decision to concentrate on philosophy in his sophomore year. He arrived at this decision serendipitously while in pursuit of his original goal of attending law school. An unofficial “Freshmen Guide” circulating among freshmen listed Government, English, and Philosophy as the three most helpful fields of concentration for those hoping to go on to Law School. After reading this and reflecting on his own interest in philosophy, Kim took an introductory philosophy course taught by the eminent Greek American philosopher Raphael Demos. His teaching fellows at the time included philosophers Robert Paul Wolff and John Rawls who were then doctoral students at Harvard. Engrossed by the questions and ideas of Western philosophy and driven by the need to complete the nearly 3,000-pages of weekly recommended readings, Kim spent most of his days at Lamont Library, which was then one of the newest libraries on campus (built in 1949) and the only library that was open until midnight with air conditioning.[7]

As he delved deeper into his area of concentration, Kim began to discover where his intellectual interests lay within the broader field. This came at a time when Harvard’s philosophical department was undergoing a transition.[8] Philosophy 140, a course on symbolic logic that was the center piece of the philosophy curriculum at Harvard, had long been taught by a towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy, Willard Van Orman Quine. When Kim took the course in his junior year, however, Quine had stepped away from teaching Philosophy 140 just the year before so it was being taught by his former student, Burton Dreben. Somewhat baffled by the mixture of logical positivism’s lingering legacy and burgeoning of post-positivistic birth pangs of the late Ludwig Wittgenstein and Quine encountered in his courses, Kim found his interests gravitating toward Greek and German philosophy. Kim became particularly excited about Plato’s theory of forms. After consulting Professor Demos, Kim decided to learn Greek over the summer so he could read Plato’s writings in the original language.

Along with his investment in Plato, while reading in Lamont, Kim came across an essay written by George Santayana titled, “Three Proofs of Realism,” in an edited volume Essays in Critical Realism published in 1920. Kim became fascinated by the intervention posed by Santayana, a Spanish-American philosopher who was a professor at Harvard from 1889 to 1912 alongside William James, Josiah Royce, Charles Sanders Pierce, and George Herbert Palmer during the “Golden Age” of philosophy at Harvard. He found the ideas and approaches of critical realism put forth by Santayana to be the most convincing solution to the puzzles posed by Plato’s theory of form. Kim was enthralled by the beauty of Santayana’s writings and devoured his works, notwithstanding the near erasure of Santayana in the formal curriculum of the philosophy program at Harvard by the 1950s. Reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Logico-Philosophical Treatise) for the first time in his sophomore year further enriched Kim’s intellectual experience, introducing him to German philosophy. Paul Tillich’s lecture course on German idealism offered by the Divinity School made a deep impression on Kim in particular. He began to learn German by listening to LP recordings of Herman Hesse and Thomas Mann.

In his senior year, Kim decided to write his honors thesis on Santayana with Donald C. Williams, the only professor in the faculty who was knowledgeable about and sympathetic to Santayana, as his advisor. His thesis was titled, “Essence: The Problem of Universals in the Philosophy of Santayana,”[9] and awarded cum laude.

Research and Work in Germany

After completing his thesis and final examinations in the spring of 1959, Kim decided to go to London to be reunited with his family and pursue his aspiration to study German philosophy at a graduate level rather than waiting until after Harvard’s commencement. At the time, his family had moved to London after his father was appointed as South Korea’s ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1958. While enjoying a long-awaited reunion with his family with whom he had not lived since he was sixteen, Kim sought out doctoral programs in Germany that would allow him to pursue his research interest in a comparative study of Wittgenstein’s and Edmund Husserl’s philosophies. Kim aspired to contribute to the integration of analytic and continental philosophies in a larger philosophical synthesis. In 1960, Kim was accepted to Bonn University after Professor Johannes Thyssen (1892–1968), an expert on Husserl’s phenomenology, took great interest in his proposed project. E.K. Specht, a young lecturer (dozent) fresh from Oxford University who had written his doctoral thesis on the late Wittgenstein, agreed to serve as a co-advisor.

During the six years in the doctoral program, Kim’s life underwent several important changes. In 1961, Kim married his long-time friend Park Sonhee (Pak Sŏn-hŭi, 박선희 朴善姬). They had first met in Cambridge in Harvard-Yenching Institute’s basement dining hall[10] when Kim was at Harvard and Park was visiting from Briarcliffe College in New York; Park had moved to the United States after completing her first year in college at Seoul National University. After Park transferred to Wellesley College, the two became close friends throughout their college years. Upon graduating from Wellesley in 1961, Park moved to Germany to start her life with Kim. They were married in the American Chapel in Bad Godesberg under the solicitous care of Ambassador Walter C. Dowling, the American ambassador to West Germany, and his wife. Ambassador Dowling was the father of Michael Dowling, one of Kim’s close friends at Harvard and former housemate at Adams who took the initiative in inviting Kim to join the Spee Club (one of Harvard’s final clubs). The Dowlings hosted a beautiful wedding reception at the ambassadorial residence following the ceremony. Soon after, Kim and Park welcomed their first of three sons, Juchan (Chu-ch’an), at the University clinic in Venusberg, Bonn in 1962.

Kim worked several jobs as he pursued his doctoral degree. The stipend from DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst; English: German Academic Exchange Service) he was receiving was not enough to support his family. Kim first worked as a freelance reporter, or “stringer” in the lingo at the time, at the Bonn office of United Press International, an American news agency. He then found employment at a West German broadcasting company for a program that specialized in overseas information activities. Through his work in journalism and broadcasting, Kim gained exposure to many parts of German society that would have been otherwise rather difficult to access as a foreigner. Kim then went on to work as a special correspondent for Hapdong News Agency (Haptong t’ongsin 合同通信), a Korean international news agency founded in 1945.[11] The agency agreed to help support Kim’s school tuition and stipend until he finished his doctoral program. One of the major events that Kim covered for Hapdong News Agency was President Park Chung Hee’s state visit to West Germany in the winter of 1964.

Kim completed his dissertation titled, “Die bedeutungstheoretische Problematik in der Philosophie Wittgensteins und Husserls” (The Problem of Meaning in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein and Husserl), and passed the defense and final oral exam (rigorosum) in the spring of 1966. His dissertation was awarded cum laude and his rigorosum, magna cum laude.

Return to the United States and Korea

The German chapter in Kim’s life came to a close when he moved to Washington, D.C. in order to open Hapdong News Agency’s U.S. branch office. Kim settled into his life in Washington, D.C. as a special correspondent covering all and any news related to South Korea in the United States. In this role, Kim placed greater emphasis on uncovering new stories and events as quickly as possible. Building networks for obtaining news became critical, and Harvard connections proved to be helpful. Kim, however, became increasingly skeptical about his role as a journalist. As explained in his memoir, Kim felt that his role as a journalist was essentially that of a passive transmitter of bits of news with no real control over the choice of items and timing. He believed at the time that his native abilities and educational background could be put to better use in a position of arriving at “truths” rather than simply transmitting facts.

Kim decided to return to Korea after contemplating future directions in his life and career. He submitted his resignation to Hapdong and arrived in Seoul in August 1967. Hoping to work in the government, Kim secured a position in the National Security Council until he could find a job that would let him apply his prior work experiences and skills. He settled into his life in Korea, learning his native language anew, which had remained at the level of a sixteen year old, and reconnecting with his old classmates from Samgwang Elementary School and Kyŏnggi Middle School.

Philosophy at the University

Kim eventually decided to pursue teaching and researching as a professor and academic rather than serving in the government. The connections he cultivated at Harvard proved to be helpful in launching his academic career. The Harvard-Yenching Visiting Scholars Program was one of the most active Harvard programs promoting the development of Korean higher education through exchange with North American scholars. Some Korean professors who had come to Harvard as Visiting Scholars remembered , having met when he was an undergraduate, and enthusiastically supported his entry into Korean academia. They encouraged and helped him secure lecturer positions at various Korean universities from immediately after ’s return in 1967. But it was at Sungkyunkwan University that began his academic career in 1971 in earnest when he was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy. While at Sungkyunkwan, he also took on a position as a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the National University of Singapore. This dual position involved commuting between Seoul and Singapore, a flight distance of seven hours, several times a year, which enabled Kim to maintain his English language. found lecturing on philosophical subjects in Korean to be rather challenging since he received his high school and college education in English and graduate training in German. He devoted much of his time familiarizing with the philosophical language in Korean. The lecture content revolved around his area of research: analytical philosophy and phenomenology.

South Korea in the seventies was in the throes of what Walt Whitman Rostow called the “take-off stage” of modernization and industrialization, during which old ways of thinking and doing came under sweeping scrutiny. The atmosphere shifted toward a ready and eager acceptance of new ideas and practices in all walks of life. In the academic circles across philosophy departments in Korean universities, there was a deep dissatisfaction with the philosophical legacy rooted in hermeneutic Chinese philosophy and Japanese interpretations of German idealism. Together with a handful of young philosophers who were trained in the analytic schools of philosophy in the United States, Kim led a movement emphasizing honesty, clarity, and precision in philosophical discourse and writing.[12] He helped form the Korean Society of Analytic Philosophy in the spring of 1976. Throughout the seventies and eighties, Kim wrote a series of seminal theoretical papers on meaning and truth in the Korean language that was free from Chinese characters (hanja) while undertaking efforts at “enlightening” through organizing reading groups, distributing classic readings in analytic philosophy, and promoting debate and discussion. The philosophical activities of Kim and his colleagues during this period have been regarded as the beginning of modern philosophy in South Korea.

In line with the growing pull of this new direction in philosophy, Kim was hired at Seoul National University’s Department of Philosophy in 1977. This appointment was unprecedented in the department’s history, since faculty appointments were governed by an unwritten rule that the appointee should be a graduate of Seoul National University. Seoul National University grew into a hub for analytical philosophy in South Korea and the best of students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels flocked to analytic philosophy. The excitement and pleasure Kim felt from working with the best of young Korean minds, however, were increasingly clouded as volatile political clashes between student protesters and the government spilled into classrooms during the late 1970s. Kim noted in his memoir that he felt rather frustrated and helpless for he could only watch the increasing leftward radicalization of students who felt cheated by what they considered the United States’ complicity in the Kwangju Uprising that took place in May 1980 and developed greater interest in leftist theories and philosophies, such as Marxism, socialism, Leninism, and North Korea’s Chuch’e ideology. Some radical student groups even denounced Kim as the vanguard of “American imperialist philosophy.”

As an academic, Kim also spearheaded efforts to connect Korea philosophic community to scholars and platforms on a global scale. He was invited to join the governing board of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP), eventually becoming its vice president. Generally considered the highest organ of world philosophy, FISP was inaugurated in Paris in 1900, and today has a membership of more than 160 philosophical societies across the continents. After becoming the president of the Korean Philosophical Association in 1995, Kim played a central role in securing South Korea’s bid to host the 22nd World Congress of Philosophy in 2008 in Korea. Some two thousand philosophers from more than sixty countries around the world attended the week-long event consisting of seminars, debates, and mutual learning.

Along with teaching and research, Kim began working with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from the seventies, which would turn out to be an important moment in his career. Although South Korea’s bid to join the United Nations as a member state in 1949 was blocked by the Soviet Union, South Korea joined UNESCO on June 14, 1950, establishing a national commission by 1954.[13] The importance of the national commissions as an instrument of foreign policy grew accordingly. Kim’s first task in relation to UNESCO was writing a report on the cultural policy of Korea. The report was designed to be part of UNESCO’s series, “Studies and documents on cultural policies.” The completed report, “Cultural Policy in the Republic of Korea,” was published by UNESCO’s headquarters in English and French in 1976.

Kim’s involvement with UNESCO progressively deepened. He attended its 22nd and 24th General Conferences held in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1980 and Sofia, Bulgaria in 1984, respectively, as part of the South Korean delegation. Kim was profoundly moved by the impassioned interventions of the delegates from the Third World and the crumbling of the Soviet sphere of influence. He felt the underlying theme running through these conferences was that of cultural identity and human dignity. During the eighties, Kim endeavored to elucidate the idea of cultural identity philosophically through a series of papers utilizing the concepts and methods in the philosophy of language. When Kim was offered a fellowship by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1990 to spend a year in Washington, D.C., he chose as his project, “The Idea of Cultural Identity and the Problems of Cultural Relativism.” In a paper with the same title, which was published by the Wilson Center, Kim rejected the idea of cultural identity as a relativistic notion and instead, proposed his conceptualization that it should be understood an attempt by a given society to reach an optimal cultural synthesis of ideas, values, and attitudes in dealing with the challenges it faced. Some commentators termed Kim’s elaboration as “evolutionary universalism.”[14]

UNESCO’s Division of Philosophy and Ethics

Kim’s aspirations to apply his intellectual interests and expertise beyond academia materialized in a dramatic way in September 1995. He was appointed as the director of UNESCO’s Division of Philosophy and Ethics. This was unprecedented in many ways; Kim was the first Korean to be appointed as a director of an UNESCO division and one of the first in Korea to hold an appointment at such global scale. As a result, newspapers announced Kim’s appointment with much pride in its pages. Taking a leave of absence from his university position, Kim soon moved to Paris where UNESCO’s headquarters were located to begin his new position.

Philosophy has occupied a venerable position within UNESCO, which was formed in November 1945. As the successor to the League of Nations’ International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation that was established in 1922, UNESCO prioritized the task of securing peace in the minds of men as its most urgent mission from its inception as an organ founded in the aftermath of the two World Wars. The founding fathers of UNESCO saw promoting philosophical education in the cause of peace as one of its prime responsibilities. As the director of the Division of Philosophy and Ethics, Kim was given a job description that included organizing international forums to reflect on the meaning of events affecting humanity, elucidate the basic concepts that are at the heart of various projects of UNESCO, and help facilitate philosophy education promoting peace in the member states. Above all, the Division was given the mandate to work toward the emergence and recognition of an ethical minimum: a shared substratum of values that would help make viable countries’ coexistence economically, socially, and culturally on a world-wide scale. During his tenure, Kim launched UNESCO’s Universal Ethics Project in March 1997. The team of multi-national young philosophers published a landmark report, “A Common Framework for the Ethics of the 21st Century,” in October 1999 after two years of debates, conferences, and research involving some of the foremost philosophers of the world. Soon after, the United Nations designated the year 2001 as the UN Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. It was decided that the report would be sent to the UN General Assembly as part of UNESCO’s contribution to the Year of Dialogue among Civilizations.

Upon the end of his term and with what he considered to be his main mission completed, Kim returned to Korea and became Secretary General of the Korean National Commission for UNESCO in 2000. He had resigned from his professorial position in 1998 in order to make room available for the younger generation of Korean philosophers. The Korean National Commission had the unique distinction of being the largest and most active of some 160 national commissions among the member states in promoting the ideals and practices of UNESCO in a non-governmental way. During his tenure Kim cooperated with the UNESCO headquarters as well as the leaders of the scientific and cultural communities to not only promote the cause of globalization, peace, and common values, but also bring new ideas that would reinvigorate these goals.

As his four-year term came to an end in 2004, Kim received an invitation from Kyung Hee University to be the dean of its Graduate School of NGO Studies. Kyung Hee University has occupied a unique position among Korean universities due to its emphasis on the ethical and philosophical basis of human society in its multifarious programs. Kim helped establish the Global Academy for Future Civilization at Kyung Hee University, which became the platform for eminent scholars both in Korea and from abroad to debate on research topics related to the future of humanity and civilizations. When he retired from Kyung Hee University at the age of 80 in 2016, Kim was engaged with students of the Graduate School of Peace Studies in the idyllic setting of Kwangnŭng, a suburb located to the northeast of Seoul.

Harvard has always loomed large in Kim’s life. For many years in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, Kim was the sole College graduate active in Seoul and thus, felt obliged to serve the Harvard community in Korea as a way to give back to his alma mater. He served as secretary and then as president of the Harvard Club of Korea continuously for almost two decades. Kim also served as Regional Director of Harvard Alumni Association during the eighties and nineties, connecting with fellow alumni in Tokyo and Hong Kong. As a proud Harvardian, Kim continues supporting the younger generations to the present. Most recently in March 2024, Kim attended a performance by the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra held in Seoul, enjoying their renditions of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Gershwin.

Written by Sujin Elisa Han, 5/3/2024

[1] This biography is based largely on Dr. Yersu Kim’s memoir published as seven articles in a South Korean journal, Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (Philosophy and Reality) between 2021 and 2023 as well as correspondences with him. The articles are listed in the works cited section below. We would like to thank Dr. Kim for all his help and support in preparing this biography and providing photographs.

[2] Kwangjai Park (1934–2014), who graduated from Harvard College in 1958 and whose biography is available here, was one year above Kim in Kyŏnggi Middle School, having entered in 1948 as part of the 50th class. Park and Kim crossed paths continuously until university. They both went abroad to attend Monterey Union High School and later, Harvard College. Youngil Lim (1932–2021), who is four years older than Kim and graduated from Harvard College in 1958, also attended Kyŏnggi Middle School. Lim’s biography is available here.

[3] Kyŏnggi Middle School’s 51st cohort has an active community website, which provides the school’s chronology along with a forum for alumni to connect. “Kyŏnggi 51 hoe tongch’angdŭl ŭi chunggogyo sijŏl paljach’wi [Kyŏnggi 51st cohort classmates’ footmark during middle and high school years 경기51회동창들의 중고교시절 발자취],” KG51 Cyber Plaza. http://www.kg51.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=board2&wr_id=3.

[4] The South Korean government revised the education laws in 1951, resulting in the division of Kyŏnggi Middle School, which was a six-year program that integrated middle and high school curricula, into separate middle and high schools in the summer of 1951. When Kim graduated in 1952, he was part of the “first” class to graduate from Kyŏnggi Middle School after it became independent from Kyŏnggi High School.

[5] Josiah Lee Auspitz, “General Education: The Program To Preserve Harvard College,” The Harvard Crimson, June 13, 1963, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/6/13/general-education-the-program-to-preserve/.

[6] Edward Josephson, “Before the Core: The History of General Education at Harvard,” The Harvard Crimson, February 17, 1978. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/17/before-the-core-the-history-of/.

[7] It was only in 1956 that Lamont Library extended its hours from 10 p.m. until midnight due to a student-led campaign. Laurence H. M. Holland, “’Round About Midnight,” The Harvard Crimson, June 3, 2006, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/6/3/round-about-midnight-the-cold-white/.

[8] For more on Harvard’s philosophical tradition written from the perspective of a Harvard professor and philosopher, Morton White, see Morton White, “Harvard’s Philosophical Heritage (1957),” in From a Philosophical Point of View: Selected Studies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 143–48.

[9] The original print of Kim’s thesis is housed at the Harvard University Archives (HU 92.59.485).

[10] This dining hall must have been in the basement of Boylston Hall because when Kim was a student at Harvard College, the Harvard-Yenching Institute and its Chinese and Japanese Library (later named as Harvard-Yenching Library) were in Boylston Hall. Due to the growing size of the Japanese and Chinese collections and increasing activities of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the Institute and its collection moved to 2 Divinity Avenue, the building formerly occupied by the Institute of Geographical Exploration that closed in 1951. This building is still the home of the Harvard-Yenching Institute and Harvard-Yenching Library. See Ruohong Li, “From Harvard Yard to Divinity Avenue: The Harvard-Yenching Institute’s Two Homes,” HYI Working Paper Series, 2021.

[11] For more information about Hapdong News Agency, see “Haptong t’ongsin (合同通信)” in Han’guk minjok munhwa taebaekkwa sajŏn [Encyclopedia of Korean Culture], https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0062314.

[12] The other figures who helped vitalize analytical philosophy in Korean academia along with Kim included Pak Yŏng-sik of Yonsei (PhD from Emory University), So Hŭng-nyŏl of Ewha Womans University (PhD from University of Michigan), and Yi Myŏng-hyŏn of Seoul National University (PhD from Brown University).

[13] Due to their positions in the Cold War, North and South Korea had observer status in the United Nations until they were admitted much later in 1991.

14] For more on evolutionary universalism, see the commentary by Peter Caws, Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, in Yersu Kim, “The Idea of Cultural Identity and Problems of Cultural Relativism,” Occasional Paper, no. 40 (Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center, 1990): 8.

Bibliography

Kim’s memoirs published in Ch’ŏlhak kwa hyŏnsil (in order of publication)

“Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin (I) hoegorok 기억의 편린 (I) 회고록 [Glimpses of Memories (I) Memoir].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2021): 193–219.

“Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin (II) hoegorok기억의 편린 (II) 회고록 [Glimpses of Memories (II) Memoir].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2021): 173–202.

“Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin (III): hyŏnsil ŭi mugŏum (1) 기억의 편린 (III) : 현실의 무거움 (1) [Glimpses of Memories (III): The Weight of Reality (1)].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2022): 139–63.

“Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin (III): hyŏnsil ŭi mugŏum (2) 기억의 편린 (III) : 현실의 무거움 (2) [Glimpses of Memories (III): The Weight of Reality (2)].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2022): 139–64.

“Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin III - panghwang kwa kwihyang (1) hoegorok 기억의 편린 III - 방황과 귀향 (1) 회고록 [Glimpses of Memories (III): Wanderings and Homecoming (1)].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2022): 145–72.

“[Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin V] segye rŭl hyanghan palchaguk (1) [기억의 편린 V] 세계를 향한 발자국 (1) [Glimpses of Memories V: Steps toward the World (1)].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2023): 120–43.

“[Kiŏk ŭi p’yŏllin V] segye rŭl hyanghan palchaguk (2) [기억의 편린 V] 세계를 향한 발자국(2) [Glimpses of Memories V: Steps toward the World (2)].” Ch’ŏrhak kwa hyŏnsil (2023): 135–49.

Primary sources

Harvard University. Harvard College Yearbook. Cambridge, MA: Published by the University, 1959.

“Paksa hagwi” [Doctoral degree]. Tonga ilbo, June 4, 1966.

“UESCO kukchang Kim Yŏ-su kyosu” [UNESCO Director Professor Kim Yersu] and “Ch’odaesŏk” [Seat for the guest]. Kyŏnghyang sinmun, July 13, 1995.

Secondary sources

Auspitz, Josiah Lee. “General Education: The Program To Preserve Harvard College.” The Harvard Crimson, June 13, 1963. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/6/13/general-education-the-program-to-preserve/.

“Haptong t’ongsin (合同通信)” [Hapdong News Agency] in Han’guk minjok munhwa taebaekkwa sajŏn [Encyclopedia of Korean Culture]. https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0062314.

Holland, Laurence H. M.. “’Round About Midnight.” The Harvard Crimson, June 3, 2006. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/6/3/round-about-midnight-the-cold-white/.

Josephson, Edward. “Before the Core: The History of General Education at Harvard.” The Harvard Crimson, February 17, 1978. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1978/2/17/before-the-core-the-history-of/.

Kim, Yersu. “The Idea of Cultural Identity and Problems of Cultural Relativism.” Occasional Paper No. 40. Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center, 1990.

“Kim Yu-t’aek (金裕澤)” in Han’guk minjok munhwa taebaekkwa sajŏn [Encyclopedia of Korean Culture]. https://encykorea.aks.ac.kr/Article/E0010095.

“Kyŏnggi 51 hoe tongch’angdŭl ŭi chunggogyo sijŏl paljach’wi” [Kyŏnggi 51st cohort classmates’ footmark during middle and high school years 경기51회 동창들의 중고교시절 발자취]. KG51 Cyber Plaza. http://www.kg51.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=board2&wr_id=3.

Li, Ruohong. “From Harvard Yard to Divinity Avenue: The Harvard-Yenching Institute’s Two Homes.” HYI Working Paper Series, 2021.

White, Morton. “Harvard’s Philosophical Heritage (1957).” In From a Philosophical Point of View: Selected Studies, 143–48. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005.

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