Go Briefs: Korea and Beyond

Wow, we didn’t see that coming!

When I announced the recent online talk by Prof Nam Chihyung on the early history of Go, I hesitated whenever people asked whether a recording would be available. I worried that if I confirmed one, fewer people would join the live session.

Well, the opposite happened.

For the first time in the (short) history of the lecture series, we hit the 300-participant limit on our Zoom business account, a number we only realised during the live event. Our sincere apologies to everyone who failed to join because of that.

The good news is that my colleague Jacob Schmidt-Madsen managed to edit the video despite a very busy schedule (he’s now in India for fieldwork on ancient board games).

-> You can watch the recording here: https://youtu.be/7kR-exQ1ZTc?si=wf2IIQlUfaPOxAhf

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Personally, I really enjoyed Prof. Chihyung Nam’s lecture, “The Origin of the Game of Go.” It was fascinating to see how carefully Go’s early history can be reconstructed, and also how many questions still remain open. It reminded me (again) why translating her recently revised and expanded book on Go history into English is such a rewarding project. Seeing so much interest and positive feedback from the audience was truly motivating.

Thanks again to Prof. Nam Chihyung (Dep. of Go Studies) for sharing her research, to Jacob for hosting this session as part of the Ludic Languages of Asia series at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and to our enthusiastic audience from many parts of the world for joining us.