Visit Munich, Germany to meet Prof. Ulrich Beck

1) Professor Ulrich Beck invited us to Munich. So we flied to Munich on May 3 and stayed at Hotel Englischer Garten for 3 nights until May 6, 2014. Currently, he leads an ERC project called which held the first intensive workshop in Potsdam, Germany, late November 2013. Prof. Han joined this workshop as an East Asian partner. An agreement was made that time to hold the second intensive workshop in Seoul National University in July 2014 just before the Yokohama World Congress of Sociology in Japan from July 13, 2014. The ERC fund covered the full expense of our trip to Munich.

2) We had dinner with Prof. Ulrich Beck and his wife, Prof. Elisabeth Beck- Gernsheim on May 4. We explained our research program of LIBEAC with our intention of research with specific focus on China and East Asia. We reached basic agreement of the conference protocol about the upcoming Seoul workshop from July 8-12, 2014.

3) On May 5, we conducted an in-depth interview with Prof. Beck for the topic of risk society and risk governance epitomized recently by the catastrophic shipwreck of “Saewyol-ho” which caused several hundred lives, particularly the precious life of young students of high school. The Korean society as a whole became immensely shocked and traumatized long by this tragedy. Prof. Shim chaired the dialogue and Prof. Beck and Prof. Han exchanged views. This dialogue was printed out in Hankyereh Newspaper in Seoul widely for two full pages, from page two to three, on May 16. Progressively oriented, Hankyereh Newspaper is the most popular among young generations from the 20s to 40s in Korea.

4) We wanted to visit Prof. Juergen Habermas to his residence at Starnberg near Munich to discuss about our interpretation of his communication theory of justice from an economic perspective. Yet we were unable to meet him since it was the time when he stayed in the USA every year.