By John Redmond

A seminar featuring Professors Marc Shell of Irving Babbitt of Comparative Literature at Harvard University will take place at the Asia Institute, GCS International Building in Jongno, Seoul, on April 27.

The topic is “The Past, Present and Future of Money.”

Money is undergoing changes in a digital age. Due to technological, cultural, social and political changes, money’s nature and its representations are shifting dramatically. Nevertheless, shifts in the nature of money, involving aesthetic, literary and technological elements, are not new. Shell is a MacArthur Fellow and has written extensively on the cultural and literary context of money, providing deep insights into the unexpected parallels between cultural and economic developments from the Stone Age to the digital age. He asks as a professor of literature: “What is money and where does its value come from?”

He is also a professor for the university’s undergraduate Literature Concentration and the graduate history of American civilization programs.

His administrative duties at Harvard have included chairing the Literature Concentration and the Department of Comparative Literature. Shell has written widely about economics and art, money and literature, language and comparative literature. He is unique as an expert on literature and art who has taken a comparative approach to the study of money that offers deep insights into the nature of the economy. He has over 15 books in print, or in the process of publication. Several important titles are:

“Art & Money” (Chicago UP 1994), “Money, Language, and Thought: Literary and Philosophical Economies from the Medieval to the Modern Era” (California UP 1982), “The Economy of Literature” (Johns Hopkins UP 1978), “Wampum and the Origin of North American Money” (Illinois UP 2009) and “The Painting in the Trash Bin: Otis Kaye and the Perplexities of Art” (Chicago UP January 2009).

There is no cost and the session runs from 6:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

To get there leave via exit 4 of Anguk Station and head straight for 400 meters and GCS is across the street from the entrance to Changdeok Palace.

Please visit http://circlesandsquares.asia.