Contested Ideas in an Age of Upheaval: Reinterpreting Twentieth-Century Political Thought in the East and the West

The twentieth century was an age of crisis and transformation, marked by two world wars and numerous civil wars, a series of coups and revolutions, imperialism and decolonization, and recurring cycles of economic expansion and contraction punctuated by periods of recession or depression. It was also a time when old beliefs and myths were dismantled, reinterpreted, and rejuvenated while different intellectual and cultural traditions collided and converged. Many of the fundamental concepts and questions that dominated political thought during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—such as liberalism, democracy, popular sovereignty, enlightenment, revolution, progress, emancipation—were revisited and revamped under the new conditions of the twentieth century.
This panel explores diverse aspects of twentieth-century political thought across different socio-political, cultural, and geographical contexts. The organizers believe that a nuanced understanding of twentieth-century political thought requires engaging with diverse perspectives that reflect the complexities of socio-political dynamics across both Eastern and Western contexts. This comparative approach highlights the contributions of non-Western thinkers alongside Western theorists, emphasizing the importance of cross-cultural engagement in enriching our understanding of global political landscapes.
Tae-Yeoun Keum examines the place of symbols and myths in politics through an analysis of Habermas’s and Blumenberg’s Cassirer Lectures. Kei Yamamoto elucidates the intricate relationship between envy, justice, and democracy, postulating that envy is both an impediment to and a precondition for the flourishing of democratic societies. Hamni Park analyzes how Fukuzawa Yukichi engaged with and reinterpreted Western concepts of liberty, thereby contributing to the formation of a distinct genealogy of liberalism in East Asia. CJ Lee compares the decolonial visions of Frantz Fanon and Yun Chi-ho, focusing on their contrasting views on the role of self-critique in national liberation. Lastly, Juman Kim highlights Ham Sok Hon’s eclectic view of revolution, which synthesized various intellectual traditions to articulate and call for a novel understanding of politics and religion.
The examination of these diverse reinterpretations of political concepts---including myth, envy, liberty, responsibility, and revolution---contributes to our understanding of the intellectual transformations that shaped twentieth-century political thought and continue to influence contemporary political theory.