'Researcher-Turned' Jeong Geun-sik, Seoul Superintendent of Education, Records History Through Pain

A Lifetime of Social and Human Rights Research, Roles Across Regimes
Documenting the Era's History Through Trauma Studies

In the office of Jeong Geun-sik, the Superintendent of Education for Seoul, there is a painting he drew himself. It depicts the bridge featured in the novel "The Bridge on the Drina," a representative work by Ivo Andri?, the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. Last August, Superintendent Jeong visited this bridge, which crosses the small town of Vi?egrad in Bosnia and Herzegovina, during a historical field trip. This place is near where the Bosnian massacre began and bears the scars of two world wars followed by a civil war.

"From the perspective of the residents who had to build the bridge, there was surely a love for their hometown, but for those who remember the massacre, it must have been a source of pain."

Jeong Geun-sik, the newly appointed Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, is walking near Gyeonghuigung Palace close to the Education Office while being interviewed by Asia Economy. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

In an interview that day, Superintendent Jeong explained how people remember historical trauma. He himself authored the book "History of Suffering," which records oral testimonies of atomic bomb survivors living in the Honam region in 2005. Superintendent Jeong is an educator who has devoted his life to studying sociology and human rights. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Seoul National University and has taught at Chonnam National University and his alma mater, Seoul National University, since 1985. He contributed to the creation of the Gwangju Human Rights Charter as chairman of the Gwangju Human Rights Charter Drafting Committee and also served as chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Jeong Geun-sik, the newly appointed Superintendent of Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, is walking near Gyeonghuigung Palace close to the Education Office while being interviewed by Asia Economy. Photo by Jo Yong-jun

He has held various positions related to historical research under successive governments. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration in 2005, he served as a non-standing member of the Presidential Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese and Anti-National Acts. Under the Lee Myung-bak government, he was the director of the Korean Democracy Research Institute at the Memorial Foundation for the Democratization Movement, and during the Moon Jae-in administration, he actively served as chairman of the second Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a ministerial-level position.