Trends in the Study of Nonhumanism in Korea

Nonhumanism is a discourse that critically addresses the symmetrical relationships between humans and nonhumans in the context of the multi-layered crisis faced by Modern Humans in the 21st century. Nonhumanism attributes a decisive role to nonhumans in human evolution, advocates for co-evolution with nonhumans, and further calls for a shift in perspective from human to nonhuman in contemporary discourses. Nonhumanism intersects with contemporary discourses such as affect theory, media-materialism, posthuman discourse, actor-network theory, and new materialism, and it has been steadily influencing the field of humanities and social sciences through the translation and introduction of key texts in Korea. According to the Korean Citation Index (KCI), nonhuman studies, which began in the early 2000s addressing various topics such as climate crisis, gender discrimination, infectious diseases, ecosystem pollution, disability and bodily modification, artificial intelligence, animal rights, and disgut issues, have seen rapid growth since 2015. Nonhumanism primarily consists of research in the humanities and notably represents a trend of interdisciplinary research classified as 'other humanities' of KCI