GWIKS Lecture Series:
Charles Kim
Associate Professor, History Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“Cold War Culture in Postcolonial South Korea”
Thursday, November 2, 2017
4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Marvin Center Room 307
The George Washington University
800 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20052
Register now
Lecture Topic
Dr. Kim will speak about his recent book, Youth for Nation: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea. This in-depth exploration of culture, media, and protest follows South Korea’s transition from the Korean War to the political struggles and socioeconomic transformations of the Park Chung Hee era. Although the post-Korean War years are commonly remembered as a time of crisis and disarray, Charles Kim contends that South Koreans used the period to rework pre-1945 constructions of national identity to meet the needs of postcolonial nation-building. He explores how state ideologues and mainstream intellectuals elevated the nation’s youth as the core protagonist of a newly independent Korea, which set the stage for the the April Revolution in 1960. Student participants laid the groundwork for the culture of protest in the 1960s to 1980s democratization movement and conservative gender relations in the subsequent decades. Those interested in twentieth-century Korea, Cold War cultures, social movements, or democratization in East Asia will not want to miss this important lecture.
About Charles Kim
Charles Kim is the Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies in the History Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Kim is a historian of modern Korea focusing on the culture and society of South Korea. His research and teaching interests include narratives, memory, media, gender, and Cold War culture and ideology. His recent book Youth for Nation: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea was published by University of Hawaii Press in 2017.
