Son Eunsil
손은실

Eunsil SON is an associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Seoul National University (SNU), where she has been teaching Christianity since 2021. She holds a B.A. in French Language and Literature with a minor in philosophy from SNU, along with an M.Div. and a Master of Theology from the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary (PUTS) in Seoul. She earned her Ph.D. from Paris IV Sorbonne University in 2006 and her Th.D. from Paris Catholic University (joint degree). Prior to her current position at SNU, she served as an assistant professor at PUTS (2014–2020) and was a full-time lecturer and research professor at PUTS and Yonsei University (2008–2014).

Her research interests lie in medieval theology and philosophy, with a particular focus on the works of Thomas Aquinas, as well as Korean and global church history and ecumenism. She has published extensively on the theology of Thomas Aquinas in both Korean and French. Two notable examples of her international publications are: Miséricorde n’est pas défaut de justice: savoir humain, révélation évangélique et justice divine chez Thomas d’Aquin (Paris: Cerf, 2018), published with the sponsorship of the Catholic University of Paris, and “Sola fide ou fide caritate formata: deux principes incompatibles? De Martin Luther à Thomas d’Aquin,” in RSPT 103 (2019/1). In the spring of 2024, she was a visiting professor at the Institute of Mission History at the Catholic University of Paris, where she presented her research on the ecumenical movement within Korean Catholicism and Protestantism.

Her current research at the HYI and the BC Ricci Institute centers on the reception of Thomas Aquinas in the catechisms of Jesuit missionaries in East Asia during the 16th and 17th centuries, with a particular focus on Alessandro Valignano.