Byung-Chul Han

Byung-Chul Han (born 1959) is a South Korean-born philosopher and cultural theorist living in Germany. He was a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and still occasionally gives courses there. Byung-Chul Han studied metallurgy at Korea University in Seoul before he moved to Germany in the 1980s to study philosophy, German literature, and Catholic theology at Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich. He received his doctoral degree at Freiburg with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger in 1994.

In 2000, he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Basel, where he completed his habilitation. In 2010 he became a faculty member at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. His areas of interest were philosophy of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, ethics, social philosophy, phenomenology, cultural theory, aesthetics, religion, media theory, and intercultural philosophy. From 2012 to 2017, he taught philosophy and cultural studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), where he directed the newly established Studium Generale general studies program.

Han is the author of twenty books, the most recent of which are treatises on what he terms a "society of tiredness" (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft), a "society of transparency" (Transparenzgesellschaft), and the concept of shanzhai (山寨), a style of imitative variation, whose roots are, he argued, intrinsic to Chinese culture, undermine the distinction often drawn between original and fake and pre-existing, he argues, practices which in Western philosophy are called deconstructive.

Han's current work focuses on transparency as a cultural norm created by neoliberal market forces, which he understands as the insatiable drive toward voluntary disclosure bordering on pornographic. According to Han, transparency dictates enforcing a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other social values such as shame, secrecy, and trust.

Until recently, he refused to give radio and television interviews and rarely divulges any biographical or personal details, including his date of birth, in public. 

Much of Han's writing is characterized by an underlying concern with the situation encountered by human subjects in the fast-paced, technologically-driven state of late capitalism. The situation is explored in its various facets through his books: sexuality, mental health (particularly burnout, depression, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), violence, freedom, technology, and popular culture.