Archived Events – Page 4 – GW Institute for Korean Studies

02/21/2023 | Korea Policy Forum, Realistic and Pragmatic Approach for Denuclearization and Peace on the Korean Peninsula

January 27, 2023February 22, 2023Archived Events, Korea Policy ForumLeave a Comment

Korea Policy Forum

Realistic and Pragmatic Approach for Denuclearization and Peace on the Korean Peninsula

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Hybrid Event

George Washington University, Elliott School for International Affairs 1957 E ST NW, Washington DC
Lindner Family Commons, Room 602

Virtual via Zoom

**Former Prime Minster Lee will be giving his main remarks in English. Consecutive interpretation from Korean to English will be provided during the Q&A session**

See the Event Program

Although nearly 30 years have now passed since the first North Korean nuclear crisis in 1993, the international community has yet to find a permanent solution leading towards the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. Despite years of negotiations, agreements, and sanctions, North Korea has continued to develop its nuclear weapons program, leading to significant tensions on the Korean peninsula. In his lecture, Nakyon Lee, former prime minister of the Republic of Korea, will offer his insights into why these past measures have ultimately been unsuccessful. Former Prime Minister Lee will then provide his own recommendations for what steps South Korea, the United States, and other major players can take to finally achieve denuclearization and lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.

Speaker

portrait of Jisoo Kim in professional attire

NAKYON LEE is a former prime minister of the Republic of Korea, who served under the Moon Jae-in administration. He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in law and became a journalist at Dong-a Ilbo. After 21 years as a journalist, he entered politics and served five terms as a member of the National Assembly. During hisfourth term in 2014, he became the governor of Jeollanam-do Province until President Moon nominated Lee as his first prime minister in 2017. He was also elected as the chairperson of the Democratic Party of Korea in 2020. During his years in public affairs, he has focused on both domestic and international affairs of South Korea. As prime minister, he was responsible for overall domestic issues, including the safety of the citizens and society. He was a member of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee at the National Assembly, in which he worked towards a peaceful inter-Korean relationship. He currently serves as a Visiting Scholar at the GW Institute for Korean Studies, where his research focuses on the peacebuilding process on the Korean peninsula.

Introductory Remarks

ALYSSA AYRES is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published in 2018. Ayres is also interested in the emergence of subnational engagement in foreign policy, particularly the growth of international city networks, and her current book project (working title, Bright Lights, Biggest Cities: The Urban Challenge to India’s Future, under contract with Oxford University Press) examines India’s urban transformation and its international implications. From 2010 to 2013, Ayres served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. She received an AB from Harvard College and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago.

Moderator

JISOO M. KIM is the Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures. She currently serves as the Director of the Institute for Korean Studies and the Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center at GW. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

01/25/2023 | Premodern Korea Lecture Series with Janet Yoon-sun Lee

January 4, 2023January 27, 2023Archived Events, Premodern Korea Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

“Lovesickness in Premodern Korea”

Wednesday, January 25, 2023

09:00 A.M – 10:30 A.M. EST

Zoom Event

Event Program (PDF)

About the Event

In a popular story, “Heart Fire Coiling Around a Pagoda” (Simhwa yot’ap 心火繞塔), Chigwi, a petty officer from the commoner class, falls in love with Queen Sŏndŏk (fl. 702–737) at first sight. When the queen hears of Chigwi’s earnest fervor for her, she summons him to a monastery. Chigwi waits for her at the foot of a pagoda but unfortunately falls asleep. When he learns that the queen left while he slept, his anger turns him into a burning fire. This man in passionate love turns himself into a fire demon, which is suggested to be the consequence of his uncontrollable feelings of self-pity, anger, and grief, implying that emotional disturbance can result in physical transformations. The interpretation of the character’s passion and consequential metamorphosis (or death) tends to yield different and even competing understandings of emotion and the body.

In this talk, Professor Lee discusses literary representations of lovesickness in traditional Korean tales and shows how lovesickness can be envisioned as a nexus of negotiations among passion, the body, and cultural norms. Specifically in the Chosŏn period (1392-1910), numerous love stories portray the lovesick characters victimized by this sickness, and the symptoms tend to eulogize the power of passionate love to override the mind and physical body. At the same time, lovesickness could be regarded as a form of Confucian sin and a violation of filial piety. In this talk, the gendered notion of “dying of love” is used to examine fictional works, “Unyŏng chŏn” (“Tale of Unyŏng”) and “Sangsa-dong ki” (“Tale of Sangsa-dong”). Through a gendered reading of those texts, Lee also discusses how male and female deaths are represented in the texts and also reveal the link between female death and the cult of female martyrdom. The talk aims to provide a more nuanced picture of the lovesick figures in these stories and contends that lovesick bodies are a site of dynamic and complex interaction between passionate love, the body, and Confucian doctrine.

Speaker

Janet Yoon-sun Lee is Associate Professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Keimyung University in South Korea. She received Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles. Her research focuses on the topics of gender and medical science in premodern and early modern Korean texts, and the major publications include a book chapter, “Lovesickness and Death in Seventeenth-Century Korean Literature” in The Routledge Companion to Korean Literature, and research articles: “The Intertextual Aspect of Women’s Culinary Manuscripts in Chosŏn Korea”; “Tale of Ch’unhyang’ as Translated by Western Missionaries”; “The Matrix of Gender, Knowledge, and Writing in the Kyuhap ch’ongsŏ”; “Dilemma of the Lovesick Hero: Masculine Images and Politics of the Body in Seventeenth-Century Korean Love Tales”; and “Female Desire, Illness, Metamorphosis in ‘Lovesick Snake’ Narratives in Sixteenth-Century Korea.”

Moderator

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures. She is the Founding Director of the Institute for Korean Studies and the Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center at GW. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation  by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled  Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

11/14/2022 | Korea Policy Forum, The U.S.-ROK Alliance at 70

November 10, 2022November 17, 2022Archived Events, Korea Policy ForumLeave a Comment

Korea Policy Forum

The Alliance at Seventy:

Towards a Global Comprehensive

Strategic Alliance in an Era of Uncertainty

Monday, November 14, 2022

3:00 PM – 4:00 PM EST

Hybrid Event

In Person at

Elliott School for International Affairs

1957 E St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20052

State Room (7th Floor)

Virtual via Zoom

The Alliance at Seventy — Towards a Global Comprehensive Strategic Alliance in an Era of Uncertainty

The ROK-U.S. alliance marks its 70th anniversary next year and has successfully maintained peace and security in Northeast Asia over the last seven decades. However, the increasingly volatile security and economic environment in the region requires a strengthening of the alliance’s role and function. In an era of such uncertainty when supply resilience, U.S.-China strategic competition, and other global issues fill the daily discourse, how has the alliance worked to adapt itself for these new challenges?

At their first summit in May 2022, President Yoon Suk-yeol and President Joe Biden reaffirmed their commitment to a “global comprehensive strategic alliance” to jointly contribute to peace, security, and prosperity in the region and around the globe, based on the shared values of the two allies. This forum will serve as a venue to discuss a new and enhanced role for the Republic of Korea in global affairs, including climate change, rules-based order, and the global supply chain. It will also review recent developments in North Korea and seek the best way for the alliance to defend against the North’s increasing nuclear and missile capabilities.

Speakers

portrait of Gregg Brazinsky in professional attire

Speaker: Ambassador Taeyong Cho (Left) has been the Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the United States of America since June 2022. Ambassador Cho, a career diplomat for almost four decades, joined the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1979. During his foreign service, his primary focuses were on North Korea’s nuclear affairs and the ROK-U.S. alliance, serving as both Director-General for North Korean Nuclear Affairs and later as Director-General for North American Affairs. At different times he was the Special Advisor to the Foreign Minister as well as a senior official in the Office of the President.

His previous foreign assignments include the United Nations, the United States, and Thailand. From 2007-2009, he served as Ambassador of the Republic of Korea to the Republic of Ireland. After a two-year period as Chief of Protocol in Seoul, he became an ambassador again, this time to the Commonwealth of Australia. Following his mission in Canberra, Ambassador Cho served in a number of different senior leadership positions in the country’s national security apparatus from 2013-2017. He served as Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs from 2013-2014, before becoming First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs. He later served as First Deputy Director to the President in the Office of National Security from 2015-2017. In May 2020, Ambassador Cho became a member of the 21st National Assembly of the Republic of Korea. There, he was Chair of the International Committee and Vice Chair of the Policy Committee of the People Power Party.

Ambassador Cho graduated from Seoul National University with a BA in political science and completed the Foreign Service Programme from University of Oxford. He was a visiting scholar at Keio University in Japan (2017-2018) and a visiting Professor of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul (2019).

Moderator: Alyssa Ayres (Right) is Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow. Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published in 2018. Ayres is also interested in the emergence of subnational engagement in foreign policy, particularly the growth of international city networks, and her current book project (working title, Bright Lights, Biggest Cities: The Urban Challenge to India’s Future, under contract with Oxford University Press) examines India’s urban transformation and its international implications. From 2010 to 2013, Ayres served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia. She received an AB from Harvard College and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago.

See the Event Program

10/28/2022 | Korea Policy Forum, ROK-China Relations: Challenges and Opportunities in the Next 30 Years

October 31, 2022October 31, 2022Archived Events, Korea Policy ForumLeave a Comment

Korea Policy Forum:

ROK-China Relations: Challenges and Opportunities in the Next 30 Years

Friday, October 28, 2022

9:00 AM – 10:30 AM EDT

Zoom Event

See the Event Program

Event Description

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between South Korea and China. Over the past three decades, the two countries have made breakthroughs in ending Cold War hostilities and have developed their bilateral relationship into a growing strategic partnership with robust trade relations and people-to-people exchanges. However, these bilateral relations have also been severely damaged by the dispute over the deployment of the THAAD anti-missile system announced in 2016 and growing anti-China sentiment in South Korea. Amid the intensifying strategic rivalry between the United States and China, ROK-China relations will navigate uncharted waters in the next decades. Four leading experts from the U.S., South Korea, and China will be joining us to discuss their views of the challenges and opportunities for the ROK-China relations in the next 30 years. The GW Institute for Korean Studies and the East Asia National Resource Center invite you to join us for an engaging discussion on this important topic.

Speakers

Gregg A. Brazinsky is Professor of History and International Affairs and Deputy Director of the Institute for Korean Studies at GW. He also serves as Director of the Asian Studies Program at the Elliott School of International Affairs. His research seeks to understand the diverse and multifaceted interactions among East Asian states and between Asia and the United States. He is the author of Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (University of North Carolina Press, 2007) and Winning the Third World: Sino-American Rivalry during the Cold War (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). He served as Interim Director of the GW Institute for Korean Studies during the Spring 2017 semester. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.

Xiaohe Cheng is Professor at the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China and a Senior Researcher at the Pangoal Institute. He mainly focuses on China’s foreign relations in general and China’s relations with the United States, the two Koreas, Vietnam and Pakistan in particular. He is a frequent speaker on Chinese and international news media. Dr. Cheng worked for China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations and served as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Fairbank Center of Harvard University (1997-1998). He also taught China’s Politics and Foreign Policies at Dublin College University (2007) and China’s Foreign at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (2009). His recently published articles mainly cover China’s relations with the Korea Peninsula and the Indian subcontinent. Dr. Cheng did his undergraduate work in international politics at Fudan University, Shanghai, and earned his MA in international relations and Ph.D. in political science from Boston University.

Heung-Kyu Kim is the founder and Director of U.S.-China Policy Institute and Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Ajou University. He previously served six years as Professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security (IFANS), MOFA. His past career experiences include serving as the Chairperson of the Reform Commission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a board member of the Policy Advisory Commission in the Presidential National Security Council, and other governmental positions such as in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Unification, and National Defense, the Army, and the National Assembly. Dr. Kim has written more than 300 articles, books, and policy papers regarding Chinese politics and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and security issues in Northeast Asia. Dr. Kim’s publications include China and the U.S.-ROK Alliance: Promoting a Trilateral Dialogue (CFR, 2017), Enemy, Homager or Equal Partner?: Evolving Korea-China Relations (2012), and From a Buffer Zone to a Strategic Burden: Evolving Sino-North Korea Relations during Hu Jintao Era (2010). His book China’s Central- Local Relations and Decision-Making received an award for Excellency of the Year by the Ministry of Culture in 2008. He also received the NEAR Foundation Academic prize of the year in the area of foreign policy and security in 2014. Dr. Kim received his BA and MA in international relations from Seoul National University and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Michigan.

Patricia M. Kim is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow at the Brookings Institution and holds a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies. She is a leading expert on Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and regional security dynamics in East Asia. Previously, Dr. Kim served as a China specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she focused on China’s impact on conflict dynamics around the world. She was also a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, International Security Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program at Princeton University. Dr. Kim’s writing and research has been featured widely in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She frequently briefs U.S. government officials in her areas of expertise and has testified before the House Intelligence Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. Dr. Kim received her doctoral degree from the Department of Politics at Princeton University and her bachelor’s degree with highest distinction in political science and Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and Korean, and proficient in Japanese.

Moderator

portrait of Yonho Kim in professional attire

Yonho Kim is an Associate Research Professor of Practice and the Associate Director of GW Institute for Korean Studies. He specializes in North Korea’s mobile telecommunications and U.S. policy towards North Korea. Kim is the author of North Korean Phone Money: Airtime Transfers as a Precursor to Mobile Payment System (2020), North Korea’s Mobile Telecommunications and Private Transportation Services in the Kim Jong-un Era (2019) and Cell Phones in North Korea: Has North Korea Entered the Telecommunications Revolution? (2014). His research findings were covered by various media outlets, including Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Yonhap News, and Libération. Prior to joining GWIKS, he extensively interacted with the Washington policy circle on the Korean peninsula as Senior Researcher of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Senior Reporter for Voice of America’s Korean Service, and Assistant Director of the Atlantic Council’s Program on Korea in Transition. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in International Relations from Seoul National University, and an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

11/05/2022 | The 30th Annual Hahn Moo-Sook Colloquium

October 31, 2022November 10, 2022Archived Events, Hahn Moo-sook Colloquium in the Korean HumanitiesLeave a Comment

“Korean Fashion: From Royal Court to Runway“

Saturday, November 5, 2022

09:00 AM – 4:00 PM EDT

Hybrid Event

In Person,

1957 E. St. NW, Harry Harding Auditorium, Washington, DC, 20052

Virtual via Zoom

Event Description

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Korean Fashion: From Royal Court to Runway, on view at the GWU Museum and The Textile Museum from August 19 through December 22, 2022, this colloquium will examine Korean clothing as an evolving expression of national identity, socio-economic transformation, and aesthetic sensibilities since the late nineteenth century. The papers will roughly follow the exhibition’s chronology, which begins with textiles sent by the Joseon government to the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago World’s Fair) in 1893—Korea’s first formal presentation of its material culture on the world stage—and concludes with present-day runway and street fashions.

Join us for a morning session of presentations at the Elliott School of International Affairs and an afternoon session at the museum exploring the exhibition.

Program (PDF)

Background

The Hahn Moo-Sook Colloquium in the Korean Humanities Series at the George Washington University provides a forum for academic discussion of Korean arts, history, language, literature, thought and religious systems in the context of East Asia and the world. The colloquium series is made possible by an endowment established by the estate of Hahn Moo-Sook (1918-1993), one of Korea’s most honored writers, to uphold her spirit of openness, curiosity, and commitment to education. The 30th Hahn Moo- Sook Colloquium is organized by the GW Institute for Korean Studies, the George Washington University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the George Washington University Museum & Textile Museum, and is cosponsored by the Korea Foundation.

10/26/2022 | Premodern Korea Lecture Series with John S. Lee

October 12, 2022October 28, 2022Archived Events, Premodern Korea Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

“Kingdom of Pines: State Forestry and the Making of Korea, 1392-1910“

Wednesday, October 26, 2022

02:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT

Zoom Event

Event Program (PDF)

About the Event

For almost every society before the twentieth century, the forest ecosystem was the main source of fuel, construction material, and raw chemical matter. In this presentation, Lee examines the longest continuous state forestry system in world history, that of Korea’s Chosŏn dynasty (1392-1910). For five hundred years, the Chosŏn government managed forests across the Korean peninsula with focus on one type of conifer, the pine. Lee argues that state forestry was fundamental to the expansion of the Chosŏn state and its military, political, and cultural priorities from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. Moreover, the government’s prioritization of pine profoundly transformed Korea’s environment. Over time however, Chosŏn forests also became contested zones as government policies clashed with administrative corruption, commercial operations, and the workaday sylvan needs of a growing populace. Overall, Lee offers a new, environmental-historical approach to Korean history that interweaves the making of state, society, and ecology on the Korean peninsula.

Speaker

John S. Lee is an environmental historian of early modern East Asia, particularly the Korean peninsula, with transregional interests in comparative histories of pre-industrial forestry; the history of pine; the premodern history of the conservationist state; and the long-term environmental legacies of Eurasian empires. He received his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages in 2017 from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His current monograph project, Kingdom of Pines: State Forestry and the Making of Korea, 918-1910, examines the rise and fall of the longest continuous state forestry system in world history, that of Korea’s Chosŏn dynasty. His other current project examines the environmental legacies of the Mongol Empire in Asia, with a focus on the long-term impact of Inner Asian equine culture on the woodland and coastal zones of sedentary East Asia.

Moderator

event banner for the 4th annual north korea economic forum conference on the North Korean markets

10/17/2022 | The North Korea Economic Forum Fourth Annual Conference

September 27, 2022May 2, 2023Archived Events, North Korea Economic ForumLeave a Comment

The Fourth North Korea Economic Forum Annual Conference

Understanding Markets in North Korea: Reforms, Narcotics, and Human Rights

Monday, October 17, 2022

9:00 AM – 3:00 PM EDT

Hybrid Event

City View Room, 7th Floor, 1957 E ST NW, Washington, DC 20052

AND Virtual via Zoom

See the Event Program (PDF)

About

As an isolated socialist country, North Korea has had to face a constant challenge of justifying its own vision of economic self-reliance and the dynamics of marketization. The North Korean people’s greater access to foreign media and domestic market information has required different versions of legitimization of mass mobilization. Drawing from a variety of academic disciplines and subject-matter specializations, this year’s North Korea Economic Forum Conference will examine the role that ideology has played in shaping and constraining economic policy and economic life in North Korea, both in the Kim Jong Un era and historically.

If you have a question for the speakers, please submit it when you complete the guest registration.

Registered guests will receive confirmation email with details for joining the Zoom event.

This event is on the record and open to the public.

For full program information and speakers’ bios, see the event program (PDF).

Background on the North Korea Economic Forum

The North Korea Economic Forum (NKEF) is part of the policy program at the George Washington University’s Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS). The Forum aims to promote the understanding of North Korean economic issues, distribute the well-balanced, deeply touched, and multi-dimensionally explored pictures of North Korean economy and to expand the network among the various North Korean economy watchers. The Forum is mostly a closed and off-the-record meeting where participants can freely and seriously discuss the critical issues. Mr. William Brown is currently the chair of the NKEF and is leading the meetings. It also organizes special conferences made public throughout the academic year. The Forum is made possible by a generous grant provided by the KDI School of Public Policy and Management.

10/05/2022 | Soh Jaipil Lecture Series with Gi-Wook Shin

September 17, 2022November 2, 2022Archived Events, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

From Anti-Japan to Anti-China: South Korean’s Changing Public Sentiments and Implications for the US-ROK Alliance

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EDT

Hybrid Event

In Person, George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner Family Commons, Room 602

And Virtual via Zoom

Download Program (PDF)

Event Description

From resentment towards economic retaliation over THAAD deployment to culture wars over hanbok and kimchi, South Korean public sentiment towards China has drastically deteriorated over the past few years, becoming even worse than sentiment toward Japan. In this talk, Professor Gi-Wook Shin will illuminate factors that contribute to Koreans’ negative views of China, in comparison to Koreans’ historically negative sentiments of Japan and anti-American sentiments of past decades. He will discuss how these anti-China sentiments may play out in the Yoon Suk-Yeol administration’s policy towards China, as well as potential implications for the U.S.-ROK alliance.

Speaker

Gi-Wook Shin is the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea in Sociology and a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He has been serving as the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center since 2005, as well as the founding director of the Korea Program since 2001. His research concentrates on social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations, with focus on Korea and broader Asia. Shin is the author/editor of over twenty books and numerous articles, including South Korea’s Democracy in Crisis: The Threats of Illiberalism, Populism, and Polarization; The North Korean Conundrum: Balancing Human Rights and Nuclear Security; Shifting Gears in Innovation Policy from Asia; Divergent Memories: Opinion Leaders and the Asia-Pacific War; One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era; Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia; and Ethnic Nationalism in Korea.

Moderator

Jisoo M. Kim is Korea Foundation Associate Professor of History, International Affairs, and East Asian Languages and Literatures. She currently serves as the Director of the Institute for Korean Studies and the Co-Director of the East Asia National Resource Center at GW. She also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Korean Studies. She is a specialist in gender, law, and emotions in Korean history. Her broader research interests include gender and sexuality, crime and justice, forensic medicine, literary representations of the law, history of emotions, vernacular, and gender writing. She is the author of The Emotions of Justice: Gender, Status, and Legal Performance in Chosŏn Korea (University of Washington Press, 2015), which was awarded the 2017 James Palais Prize of the Association for Asian Studies. She is also the co-editor of The Great East Asian War and the Birth of the Korean Nation by JaHyun Kim Haboush (Columbia University Press, 2016). She is currently working on a book project tentatively entitled Sexual Desire, Crime, and Gendered Subjects: A History of Adultery Law in Korea. She received her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University.

10/03/2022 | The Postmemory Generation in South Korea: Contemporary Korean Arts and Films on the Memories of the Korean War, 2000-2020

September 17, 2022October 5, 2022Archived EventsLeave a Comment

Monday, October 3, 2022

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM Eastern Time

Hybrid Event

In Person, George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner Family
Commons (Room 602)

And Virtual via Zoom

RSVP

Download Program (PDF)

About this event

What has happened to the post memory generation in South Korea? The country is notorious for conflicting views toward the Korean and Cold War among different generations throughout a range of political and cultural spectrums. This talk provides a rare opportunity to look at the oblivious postwar South Korean society, generation gaps in the Korean War, and ongoing ideological conflicts in South Korea. The historical interpretation of the Korean War has been the center of contentious debate in postwar South Korean society among different generations: 1) war survivors born and raised in the 1950s, 2) protestors participating in the Democratization Movement under the Military Dictatorship in the 1960s until the end of the 1980s, and 3) Shinsaedae (New Generation), whose understanding of the war has been largely controlled by the secondary sources of popular culture—who can be dubbed as the post memory generation in South Korea.

Presented by Dong-Yeon Koh, an art critic and author of The Korean War and Postmemory Generation (London: Routledge, 2021), it also serves as an important avenue toward the understanding of contemporary Korean arts and films on the Korean War by the generation of artists born after the late 1960s and afterward. The talk will be presented with the images of notable artworks by 13 contemporary Korean artists and filmmakers in artistic genres of documentary photography, participatory arts, performance arts, documentary films media installations, and memorials.

Speaker

Dong-Yeon Koh, an art critic, has served as a mentor and committee member in art residencies and museums in South Korea over the last two decades. She was the commissioner of the Goyang Outdoor Sculpture Festival (2017, 2018) and served as the managing committee of NaMAF (Seoul International ALT Cinema & Media Festival) (2017-2021). Dr. Koh has also published more than 40 academic essays in academic journals worldwide including Inter-Asia Journal of Cultural Studies (Routledge), Flash Art, Modern Art Asia, Photography and Culture (Routledge), and Positions (Duke University Press). Koh’s recent books are From Softpower to Goods: Alternative Forms of Exhibitions and Populist Artistic Practices in Post-1990s East Asian Art (Seoul, 2018), The Condition for Art Criticism (Seoul, 2019), and Korean War and Post-memory Generation: The Arts and Films in South Korea (London: Routledge, 2021). She is currently an adjunct lecturer at Seoul National University.

Moderator

Sandra H. Park is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the George Washington University Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS). She is a historian of modern Korea, the US empire, and the global Cold War. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript, tentatively titled Anointed Citizenship: The Politics of Christian Border Crossing in Cold War Korea. Drawing on extensive archival research across government, military, and missionary archives, her book project examines the coherence of Christian moral politics as a pledge of allegiance for North Korean border crossers petitioning for citizenship in “Free” South Korea under the US military empire. Her project traces the cross-border movements of Christians and transpacific circulations of Christian political claims during and immediately after the Korean War, contributing to existing literatures on North Korean migrants and citizenship, religion and the global Cold War, and US-Korean relations in the twentieth century. As an interdisciplinary historian interested broadly in the entanglements between religion and Cold War politics in the transpacific world, Sandra’s research also extends to debates around religious freedom, the making of the US empire in Asia, and the politics of religious devotion in Korean America as well as socialist secularization in revolutionary North Korea. Her previous research on religion and the North Korean people’s court appeared in the Journal of Korean Studies.

event banner for the next generation conference on korean studies

9/16-9/17/2022 | Next Generation Scholarship in Korean Studies Conference

September 13, 2022September 23, 2022Archived EventsLeave a Comment

Friday, September 16, 2022

8:30 AM – 3:45 PM EDT

Saturday, September 17, 2022

8:30 AM – 5:00 PM EDT

In-Person Event

Lindner Commons, 6th Floor

1957 E ST NW, Washington, DC 20052

See the Event Program (PDF)

About the Event

Drawing from a variety of academic disciplines and subject-matter specializations, the Next Generation Scholarship in Korean Studies Conference serves as an opportunity for undergraduate students across the United States to present their original research in Korean Studies. GWIKS has selected 21 students to present their research papers at a two-day conference hosted at George Washington University. Students will present their work in six sessions divided into two general categories: humanities and social sciences. A panel of judges will select the top three winners in each category at the end of the conference.

For the full event agenda, please see the event program (PDF).

This event is on the record and open to the public.

Korea Policy Forum

Realistic and Pragmatic Approach for Denuclearization and Peace on the Korean Peninsula

Speaker

Introductory Remarks

Moderator

“Lovesickness in Premodern Korea”

About the Event

Speaker

Moderator

Korea Policy Forum

The Alliance at Seventy:

Towards a Global Comprehensive

Strategic Alliance in an Era of Uncertainty

Speakers

Korea Policy Forum:

ROK-China Relations: Challenges and Opportunities in the Next 30 Years

Event Description

Speakers

Moderator

“Korean Fashion: From Royal Court to Runway“

Event Description

Join us for a morning session of presentations at the Elliott School of International Affairs and an afternoon session at the museum exploring the exhibition.

Background

“Kingdom of Pines: State Forestry and the Making of Korea, 1392-1910“

About the Event

Speaker

Moderator

The Fourth North Korea Economic Forum Annual Conference

Understanding Markets in North Korea: Reforms, Narcotics, and Human Rights

About

Background on the North Korea Economic Forum

Event Description

Speaker

Moderator

Monday, October 3, 2022

2:00 PM – 3:30 PM Eastern Time

Hybrid Event

In Person, George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner FamilyCommons (Room 602)

And Virtual via Zoom

About this event

Speaker

Moderator

About the Event

In Person, George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs, Lindner Family
Commons (Room 602)