The workshop on "Candlelight Politics and Social Theory" was held at the seminar room of Joongmin Foundation for Social Theory(JFST) on March 8.  In this workshop, which was jointly hosted by JFST and Korean Society for Social Theory(KSST),  7 scholars presented various interesting approaches to the Korea–specific candlelight politics.

Prof. Eloisa Martin, the editor-in-chief of Current Sociology, provided an interesting comparison of the presidential impeachment cases of South Korea and Brazil and proposed the task of bridging the gap between the current situation and social theory. Prof. Kwang-Yeong Shin also pointed out the limits of social theory revealed in this candlelight politics. Prof. Eun-Sung Kim and Prof. Hwan-Suk Kim presented respectively an interesting approach to the candlelight politics from the viewpoint of the material culture of new materialism. Doctor Bo-Myung Kim explored how misogyny functions in the recent events of candlelight protests. Prof. Sang-jin Han, the president of the JFST, explored the meaning of the candlelight politics by using the concepts of ‘emancipatory catastrophism’ and ‘metamorphosis’ so as to show how the candlelight politics demands the transformation of the existing political system and political imagination. And Prof. Sang-Jun Kim asked the question of how to constitutionalize the sovereign will which was revealed in the candlelight politics, and presented the Citizens Assembly as an answer. Following a two-hour presentation, a heated debate took place over an hour.