The Centre d'études coréennes (formerly " Institut d'études coréennes ") was created in 1973 on the initiative of Prof. Li Ogg and the administrator of the Collège de France, to take over part of the Sorbonne's old Korean collection accumulated by Prof. Charles Haguenaueur (1896-1976), which was moved in 1959.
The library includes some fifty early works from the Maurice Courant collection. From 1979, the Centre d'études coréennes inaugurated its publishing activities : " Mémoires " (doctoral theses, eleven titles) then " Cahiers " (articles, eight titles). Li Ogg was director until his retirement in 1992. His successors were Marc Orange (CNRS, from 1992 to 2002), Martine Prost (Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7, 2002-2011) and Alain Delissen (EHESS, from 2011 to 2021).
Historically, the center's activities have focused on documentation and publishing. The two collections " Mémoires " and " Cahiers " were recast and renewed by Alain Delissen in the collection " Kalp'i - Études coréennes ", whose first monograph came out in 2016.
In keeping with its history, the Centre d'études coréennes currently carries out three main activities :
- Management of the Collège de France's Korean collection (in partnership with the Fondation de Corée) ;
- Management of the " Kalp'i " collection ;
- Individual and collective research activities in line with the specialization of its director : ancient and medieval history of Korea, epigraphic studies, with the ambition of constituting the first team of French-speaking researchers on Korean Buddhism.
The center has a director : Yannick Bruneton - professor at the Université Paris Cité and director of studies at the EPHE,5th section - and a head of the Korean Studies Library : Ms. NO Mi-sug, research engineer and documentalist.
Illustration: modern, portable Korean painting of a bodhisattva with the Eiffel Tower in the background, work of the Dohwawon 都畵院 도화원 (Gyeonggido Goyang, South Korea).
