Soh Jaipil Lecture Series – Page 4 – GW Institute for Korean Studies

[October 24, 2018] North Korean Art: Transcending Ideologies

October 1, 2018September 21, 2021Archived Events, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

Lecture Series with BG Muhn

North Korean Art: Transcending Ideologies

Co-sponsored by PISA & GWIKS

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

Lindner Family Commons

Elliott School of International Affairs

1957 E St. NW, Room 602, Washington, DC 20052

Professor B.G. Muhn’s talk will be focusing on the exhibition he curated in South Korea, which is held at the 2018 Gwangju Biennale until November 11, 2018, “North Korean Art: Paradoxical Realism.” This North Korean art exhibition at the Biennale is most probably the first opportunity for the people of South Korea and around the world to see North Korean art in its full spectrum within the context of Socialist Realism art. Within the realm of Socialist Realism art, North Korea is the only country that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, is still creating Socialist Realism in the world, and it is worth noting that the art has developed a unique expression and characteristics.

Speaker: Professor BG Muhn, Department of Art and Art History, Georgetown University

BG Muhn, a painter and art professor at Georgetown University, has achieved substantial and noteworthy professional recognition through solo exhibitions in venues such as Stux Gallery in Chelsea in New York City, Ilmin Museum of Art in Seoul and the American University Museum in Washington, DC. He also has received acclaim in reviews and interviews, appearing in prominent media such as The New York Times, Art in America and CNN. BG Muhn is an authority on North Korean art. He has made nine research trips to DPRK to visit museums and interview artists and has been giving lectures on North Korean art at numerous academic and cultural venues including Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Harvard universities and Water Mill Art Center for Robert Wilson. He curated “Contemporary North Korean Art: Evolution of Socialist Realism” at the American University Museum in Washington, DC in 2016. His article on the issue was featured in a global British magazine, Index on Censorship (2017), and his interview was included in a British magazine Contra (2018). His eight-year endeavor on the research of Chosonhwa culminated in his recently published book, Pyongyang Art: The Enigmatic World of Chosonhwa (2018, Seoul Selection, 300 pages). Muhn was also chosen as curator for the North Korean art exhibition, North Korean Art: Paradoxical Realism at the 2018 Gwangju Biennale in Korea.

Moderator: Professor Janis Goodman, Department of Fine Arts, The George Washington University

Janis Goodman is a Washington DC-based artist. She is currently a Professor of Fine Arts at the Corcoran School of Arts/George Washington University in Washington, DC. She was one of the founders of the arts group Workingman Collective. She is the arts reviewer for Around Town, WETA TV a PBS affiliate. She was awarded a Franz and Virginia Bader Award and DC Commission on the Arts Grant for 2018. Janis Goodman’s drawings and paintings move between the narrative and the deconstructed. The paintings are based on intuition and first-hand experience. Years of hiking national parks and kayaking rivers along the east coast have formed the backdrop of her work. Her fascination with natural phenomenon fuels her interest in movement, line, image, and color. Ms. Goodman’s work follows the invisible energy paths connecting the dots between the observed, imagined and remembered. Ms. Goodman’s interest in the arts and education has been fueled by extensive travel through Asia and western Europe. Janis has been an artist in resident for the past three years at the Shoals Marine Lab on Appledore Island, ME. Her work with Shoals underscores her interest in ecology and the paths of nature.

Lecture Series: “Book Talk: North Korean Human Rights and Transnational Advocacy”

September 18, 2018August 6, 2021Event Summaries, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

Director Jisoo M. Kim opened the event with welcoming comments and introduced the panelists.

Professor Andrew Yeo, Associate Professor of Catholic University of America, presented the new book “North Korean Human Rights: Activists and Networks” that he co-edited and shared his analysis on activism and advocacy networks for North Korean human rights.

There are increased global concerns regarding human rights abuses in North Korea. Some actors from the advocacy network, such as NGOs, Governments, grassroots groups, Think Tanks, and individuals are engaged in dealing with the problem. All of them share a common goal despite their different political positions or the way of approach. The book explains that the network of North Korean human rights consists of three-dimensional structure: domestic, transnational networks, and North Korean perspectives. The linkage between domestic and transnational networks explains the specific domestic issue (i.e., North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens) or mutual relations among them (i.e., Global pressure on South Korean legislative). There are three main questions raised and answered on the advocacy issue, which are emergence, impact, and theory. The author stressed that they differ over time and across space.

Professor Celeste Arrington, Korea Foundation Assistant Professor at the the George Washington University, introduced chapter four of the book, which she contributed in writing. It examined how the North Korean human rights issues included abductions. She explained the brief timeline of how abduction issue was handled internationally and how North Korea related activist groups in Japan are involved in formatting public understanding regarding not only for the abduction issues but also broader human right issues.

Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, recommended the book by expressing admiration of how the book covered the comprehensive history of North Korean human rights that several important organizations and networks have played a key role to speed up the movement towards North Korean human rights since the 1990s.

GWIKS Lecture Series “Advocacy for South Korea’s International Development”

April 11, 2018July 29, 2021Archived Events, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

Advocacy for South Korea’s International Development: Escape from Developmentalism and Asianization of Nordic Development Aid with Taekyoon Kim

Monday, April 23, 2018
3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

The Elliott School of International Affairs
Room 505
1957 E St. NW
Washington DC, 20052

RSVP

Lecture Topic

Since 2010, South Korea (hereafter Korea) has been a full-fledged member of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) with which it has made the successful transition from an aid recipient to an aid donor country. Measured by its volume, Korea counts as one of the largest contributors of official development assistance (ODA) among OECD DAC members and has promised to make continuous efforts to improve its ODA policies as to adhere to the OECD DAC standards. Nevertheless, although Korea’s ODA in terms of quantity has been on a constant increase and Korea has made continuous efforts to improve its aid effectiveness, Korea’s ODA has been criticized for its low quality and policy-decisions have often not translated into actual implementation. Korea’s ODA agenda not only suggests a strong economic interest in giving aid, but also contains elements that strongly reflect Korea’s own experience as a developmental state. Based upon a historical analysis of Korea’s ODA decision-making process and through the lens of the developmental state thesis, this research tries to analyse why Korea has continuously struggled to implement more effective and coherent ODA policies vis-à-vis its ambitious claims. This research will show that Korea’s developmentalist mind-set, which originated during its own heydays as a developmental state, is still closely embedded in Korea’s ODA policy decision-making process which determines much of Korea’s path as an ODA donor. Also it will propose how to overcome the developmentalist trap of Korea’s development cooperation not only by adopting the humanitarian way of Nordic donors into the Asian context, but also in comparison with the other two Asian donors – Japan and China. Read more in Dr. Kim’s briefing on the topic here.

About Dr. Taekyoon Kim

Taekyoon Kim is associate professor of international development and former associate dean for international affairs of the Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University. For many years, he served as the secretary general of the Korean Association of International Studies, and the Korea Association for International Development and Cooperation, and as a board member of International Political Science Association (RC18). In the public sector, he currently serves as a policy advisor for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and also worked for the UNESCO Bangkok Office, UNDP Seoul Policy Center, ILO, and UN Office for Sustainable Development. In the academic field, he has been participating in various academic research projects of UNRISD, Goethe University’s AFRASO, Tübingen University’s Global South Project, and Institute of Developing Economies (Japan External Trade Organization). In the civic sector, he is the chairperson of international affairs at the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice, and advisory member of ODA Watch in Korea. His main academic research areas include international development, global governance and international political sociology, and he published many articles to academic peer-reviewed journals such as International Sociology, Journal of Democracy, Global Governance, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Voluntas, and so forth. He also co-published The Korean State and Social Policy (Oxford University Press, 2011). Prior to joining Seoul National University, he had teaching and research positions at different academic institutes – Wasdea University in Japan, University of Paris IV (Sorbonne) in France, and Ewha Womans University in Korea. He received D.Phil. from University of Oxford and Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Institute for Korean Studies (GWIKS) was established at the George Washington University to strengthen and grow the existing Korean Studies program at GW and promote the Korean humanities in the nation’s capital. It is determined to play a leadership role in encouraging and enabling productive research about Korea in the Washington DC metropolitan area. GWIKS Lecture Series is an attempt to bring leading local scholars in Korean studies to GW to interact with GW professionals and students and share their ideas and recent studies.

Lecture Series: Cho Hong Je

March 22, 2018July 29, 2021Archived Events, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

Dr. Hong-Je Cho, a Senior Research Fellow at the Korea National Defense University’s Research Institute for National Security Affairs and a Visiting Scholar at the Space Policy Institute at the Elliott School, gave his presentation on “North Korea’s Missiles: Past, Present, and Prospects.” Dr. Cho, who has served as a South Korean Air Force Officer for the past 29 years, shared with the audience his knowledge and insight into North Korea’s nuclear and missile program. He began by providing context on the rapidly evolving nature of the Korean peninsula’s security situation, in light of the diplomatic outreaches and proposals for summits following the PyeongChang Olympics.

Dr. Cho stated four different reasons as to why North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons and missiles. He stated, firstly, that North Korea desires to guarantee its survival, ultimately preventing regime change and military “decapitation” by the US. Secondly, North Korea seeks to bolster domestic support through such a program. Third, Dr. Cho claimed that this could ultimately be viewed as an asymmetric strategy. Lastly, its nuclear weapons program and ballistic missiles are to compensate for its outdated conventional weapons. Despite this outdate nature of its conventional weapons, Dr. Cho pointed out that the [North] Korean People’s Army ground force consists of a million active duty soldiers, as well as millions more in civilian reserve.

In the history of North Korea’s missile development and testing, Kim Jong-un has been actively launching missiles to a much greater extent than his father and grandfather. Dr. Cho gave a few numbers to illustrate North Korea’s missile fleet: it currently possesses more than 800 ballistic missiles, with 600 of these being Scud missiles.

However, North Korea’s missiles do face some limitations and challenges. First, North Korea has yet to completely master miniaturizing its nuclear warheads, where they would be small enough to fit on a missile. Second, they are still working on their reentry vehicle technology, where their missiles would be strong enough to withstand enormous temperature and structural pressures during its descent through the earth’s atmosphere to its target. Despite these limitations, Dr. Cho gave an estimate that North Korea would most likely be able to surpass these challenges within the next 2 years.

Given that 2018 is North Korea’s 70th anniversary of the founding of its regime, it is of concern that Kim Jong-un may launch missiles as a means of commemorating this date. For one thing, we can be optimistic that by sitting down at the negotiating table and opening dialogue, we have the potential to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons experiment and missile launches. On the more pessimistic and skeptical side regarding the North’s intentions, the international community can continue to strengthen sanctions, cooperate with one another, and identify countermeasures to the North’s program. Dr. Cho emphasized the need for the complete, irreversible, and verifiable denuclearization of the North and the importance of open dialogue and gathering around the negotiation table to establish perpetual peace on the Korean peninsula. To finish his remarks, he quoted Sun Tzu in The Art of War: “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”

Written by Bomie Lee

Charlotte Horlyck Lecture Summary

March 20, 2018July 29, 2021Archived Events, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

In her March 8 lecture, Charlotte Horlyck, Smithsonian Institution Senior Fellow of Art History at the Freer|Sackler, discussed “Charles Lang Freer and the Collecting of Korean Art in the Early 20th Century.” Through researching letters, collection catalogues, and purchase documents, she found that while Chosun-era pottery is most valuable today, collectors focused on Koryo celadon wares in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This interest developed quickly after Korea opened to the west in the 1880s, because missionaries and diplomats could obtain art as gifts or even from tombs and bring it home with them. Japanese collectors also sold Korean pottery, like New York’s Yamanaka and Co., and pieces circulated among the estates of prominent collectors. Korean culture was seen as traditional while Japan and China were changing and modernizing, but scholarship about Korean culture was scarce at the time. Charles Freer began collecting Korean pottery in the late 1880s because James McNeill Whistler, a favorite artist of his and designer of the Freer Gallery’s famous “Peacock Room,” was inspired by Asian art. Freer based his choices on aesthetics rather than history. He donated his collection to the U.S. government in 1906, and the Freer Gallery opened in 1926, becoming the first art museum on the Smithsonian campus.

GWIKS Lecture Series: Charles Kim “Cold War Culture in Postcolonial South Korea”

November 8, 2017July 29, 2021Archived Events, News, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

“Cold War Culture in Postcolonial South Korea”

Charles Kim is Associate Professor in History Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined us on November 2, 2017, to talk about his new book Youth for Nation: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea. His book explores the South Korean transition period from post-Korean war to Park Chung Hee era, and traces the construction of national identity, which was necessary with the postcolonial nation-building process. During this period, South Koreans were easy to mobilize, making it possible for the Park regime to implement anti-communist ideological training.

Youth for Nation is divided into two big parts: “student vanguard” and “wholesome modernization”.

“Student Vanguard”

The youth were privileged groups that symbolized hope for the new nation, and were targeted for instilling nation-centered ideology. They served as model patriotic subjects for other countries. As the students were seen as a protected group, the protests that occurred against the dictatorship often used students as vanguards to decrease the level of suppression. Though, it was true in many cases, leaders of the demonstrations were students themselves.

The students received two types of education. The everyday form of education taught students to be dutiful national citizens. On the other hand, the extraordinary form taught them to become combative and to question the corruption of the ruling classes as they were referred to the anti-Japanese movement on March 1^st, 1919. South Korean youth were able to develop a unique Cold War-period South Korean national identity that has left remnants on the public to this day.

“Wholesome Modernization”

There was a huge influence of Euro-American culture at the time in South Korea as well as a movement towards modernization. With the emphasis of developmental happiness, the modernization in South Korea was fast-paced but also wholesome. It taught people about the romance of delayed gratification. This type of modernization allowed Park Chung Hee’s National Citizens Reconstruction Movement (1961-1964) and, following that, the Saemaeul Undong (New Community Movement) to successfully take place. These political initiatives focused on the improvement of basic living conditions and environment in South Korea through frugal lifestyles and having all South Korean citizens collaborate on rural development projects.

Kim ended his talk by identifying some traces of the “wholesome modernization” in the current days of South Korea. He said that the candlelight protests in 2016-2017 against Park Geunhye’s presidency was done in a peaceful way and reflected good citizenship. For instance, a high number of people who participated in the demonstration for their country also made sure to clean up after themselves when the protests ended. There is also an ongoing TV show called “Master of Living” that shows people who become experts in a seemingly mundane everyday chore or work (i.e. stamping labels, stacking tires, etc.) by diligently mastering their skill for several years. This reflects the developmental happiness and delayed gratification that is embedded in the culture during the Cold War era in South Korea.

We highly recommend Charles Kim’s Youth for Nation: Culture and Protest in Cold War South Korea for readers interested in twentieth-century Korea, Cold War cultures, social movements, nation identity-building, or democratization in East Asia. We also hope you enjoy this movie that reflects the Cold War era in South Korea. The Love Marriage.

Written by Ann Yang

November 2: Lecture Series with Dr. Charles Kim

October 16, 2017July 29, 2021Archived Events, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

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.

Second Lecture Series – Yafeng Xia

April 12, 2017July 29, 2021Archived Events, News, Soh Jaipil Lecture SeriesLeave a Comment

Professor Yafeng Xia was invited as the second lecturer for the GW Institute for Korean Studies Lecture Series. This lecture attracted more than 70 people who are interested in the issues of Sino-North Korean relations. Yafeng Xia is currently a Professor of History at Long Island University in New York and Senior Research Fellow at Research Institute for Asian Neighborhood, East China Normal University in Shanghai. His lecture was about China’s policy towards North Korea during the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1969. He argues that despite the myth of the “brotherly affection” between China and North Korea, the relationship had reached its lowest ebb during the Cultural Revolution.

Yafeng Xia giving lecture next to projector in front of audience Yafeng Xia presenting to room full of audience

With the Cultural Revolution, China had radical and uncompromising policies both domestically and internationally. Chinese leaders accused North Korean leaders that they had become revisionists and the Red guards verbally attacked Kim Il Sung. North Korea also wasn’t shy with criticizing China’s leftist opportunism, dogmatism, and chauvinism. It was during that time when the economic and military aid that China was providing to North Korea was suspended, no high-levels visited mutually, and no cultural or economic agreements were signed. Though, he reemphasized the fact that both countries remained sensitive to the fragile relationship as China left North Korea alone from the Cultural Revolution and Kim Il-Sung never once criticized the Chinese leaders by name in public. There was also bilateral trade that continued between the two countries though limited.

With the examination of the historical relationship between the two countries during Cold War, Professor Xia provided three interpretations from different perspectives:

Geopolitical and ideological perspectives: During the Cold War, Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung maintained asymmetric alliance relations as a big power and a small power. Except for the period during the Cultural Revolution, Kim Il Sung visited China almost every year but Mao never set foot on North Korea. Nonetheless, Kim ensured North Korea’s political and diplomatic independence.
Cultural traditions and diplomacy perspectives: Post-WWII Sino-North Korean relations were in the process of transformation from a suzerain/vassal state to a modern state-to-state relationship. It was a struggle between China’s concept of a suzerain/vassal state relationship and North Korea’s Juche ideology and resistance to flunkeyism.
Code of conduct and political norms perspectives: The Sino-North Korean alliance demonstrated the structural drawbacks of relations among socialist states. Politically, China, “the big brother of this socialist family”, believed that it had the right to interfere in the internal affairs of “other members of the socialist family”, North Korea. On the other hand, the “younger brother”, North Korea, could be capricious and act shamelessly, while the “big brother”, China, endured the humiliation in order to carry out the common mission.

The lecture ended successfully with a high participation and vigorous questions. This event brought a lot of interest as the Sino-North Korean relationship is a subject that is not as commonly studied. We thank Professor Xia for taking his time to share his studies with the GW students, GW faculty members, and other scholars in DC.

Written by Ann Yang