The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it will host the 2025 International Gyeongju History and Culture Forum from the 19th to the 21st in the area around Gyeongju Arts Center, together with North Gyeongsang Province and Gyeongju.
This year's forum, under the theme Looking at the stars on the road of a thousand years, will discuss consolidation, innovation and prosperity—core agenda items of the APEC summit—in the historic cultural city of Gyeongju. Scholars and citizens will participate together to experience humanistic values in everyday life and seek a sustainable future.
On the first day, writer Park Cheon-hyu and composer Will Aronson of the musical Maybe Happy Ending, which won six Tony Awards, will deliver keynote speeches. The two will explore how different cultures and languages meet from the perspectives of consolidation and innovation.
On the second day, Joseph Henrich, a professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, will explain the driving forces behind the development of human societies under the theme of cultural evolution. Then Yamada Masahiro, a professor in the Department of Literature at Chuo University, will examine the sustainability of communities, focusing on changes in Japanese society and human relationships. Poet Park Jun and women's studies scholar Jeong Hee-jin will present a discourse on social minorities and empathy under the theme of consolidation.
On the final day, Kim Sang-wook, a professor in the Department of Physics at Kyunghee University, will give a lecture on the relationship between science and technology innovation and human prosperity. Diane Enns, a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University, will offer a philosophical look at isolation and loneliness in modern society.
During the event, a Book Festival will be held at the Fountain Plaza. During the day, there will be a book market, performances, and hands-on programs featuring neighborhood bookstores and publishers, and at night, writers Go Myung-hwan, Seo Kyung-seok, Lee Ji-young, and Bong Tae-gyu will give lectures. At the Alcheon Museum of Art in Gyeongju Arts Center, works by four masters of modern and contemporary Korean art—Lee Jung-seop, Park Soo-keun, Kim Whanki, and Chang Ucchin—will also be exhibited.
Lecture tickets can be reserved through the Gyeongju Cultural Foundation website or Ticketlink. Tickets can be exchanged for speakers' books, and purchasers will receive benefits such as exhibition admission. The Book Festival is free.
Lee Jeong-mi, director-general for cultural policy at the ministry, said, "This event is a meaningful occasion to share wisdom together in the language of culture, history and philosophy on the challenges facing humanity," adding, "The ministry will continue to spread the value of culture, the arts and the humanities to enrich people's daily lives."