Source: Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai)
Written by: Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai)
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

On March 11, 2016, the Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai) at Sun Yat-sen University held a ceremony on Zhuhai Campus to appoint Prof. Jun-Hyeok Kwak as Professor of SYSU’s “Hundred Talents Program”.

At the appointment ceremony, leading figures from Zhuhai Campus and the Department warmly welcomed Prof. Kwak to join the SYSU community, saying that they would give full support and provide quality service for international faculty members. Prof. Kwak said that it is his honor to join SYSU, and he appreciated it that the faculty staff members helped him settle down in Zhuhai. He likes Zhuhai Campus very much and his family will move to Zhuhai soon. He wants to be a bridge connecting Zhuhai and the world and leading the Department to be more internationalized. The department chair, Prof. Chen Jianhong, presented the letter of appointment to Professor Kwak. He expresses his appreciation of Prof. Kwak’s achievement and believes that Prof. Kwak will make valuable contributions to the development of the Department.

Prof. Kwak is the first foreign academic leading figure as a professor of the “Hundred Talents Program” in both Zhuhai Campus and Department of Philosophy (Zhuhai), which means that the Department has moved the first step to its development of international orientation.
 

Prof. Chen Jianhong (right) presenting the letter of appointment to Prof. Jun-Hyeok Kwak (left) 

Before joining Sun Yat-sen University, Prof. KWAK was Co-director of the Institute for Values and Ethics, Soongsil University, Seoul, Korea. And he was Associate Professor of Political Science at Korea University from 2007 to 2013, where he taught political philosophy and contemporary political theories. He also taught the history of political philosophy and political theories as an assistant professor at Kyungpook National University from 2005 to 2007. He taught as a Visiting Professor at the University of Bologna in 2004-2005. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2002. Currently, he is serving as the General Editor of the Routledge Series of Political Theories in East Asian Context. This series examines the essential theoretical and practical issues spanning around East Asia and provides them with cross-cultural frameworks which illuminate both the particularities of East Asia and the universality of humanity.

His research interests lie at the crossroads of political philosophy from Socrates to Machiavelli and contemporary sociopolitical theories. His research currently focuses on constructing reciprocal nondomination as a regulative principle that guides agonistic deliberation between peoples in conflict as well as cultures in tension, with special but not exclusive attention to classical republicanism, such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Machiavelli. Chiefly, he inquires a way in which reciprocal nondomination can be applicable to various subjects, including patriotism without nationalism, democratic theories, global ethics, and peaceful coexistence. He is now working on books entitled, Machiavelli in East Asian Context, Leo Strauss in East Asian Context, and Reciprocal Non-domination, and running projects “Patriotism” and “Democratic Leadership.”