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Abstract: In recent years, scholars have pursued new ways to complicate the divide between North and South Korea, whether in terms of film, literature, or art, often focusing on small groups of elites who previously interacted during the colonial period. One of the most interesting and promising topics relevant to this effort is classical music. With many of the earliest practitioners of a Korean classical tradition studying outside of the peninsula, while also roaming widely within the boundaries of Korea, music represents a cultural field holding numerous resonances during the colonial period, further complicated by the circumstances of division. Kim Il Sung famously recruited for the arts, seeking those prepared to ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: For over eight decades, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has remained one of the most enigmatic and frequently misinterpreted states in the world. Although the country has been analyzed through diverse interpretive frameworks throughout its history, public discourse has predominantly emphasized its missile programs and human rights violations, often coupled with a fixation on sensationalized accounts of its leadership.In this context, what is there to gain from redirecting the focus from the political leadership to the North Korean people' Adopting a humanized perspective offers the potential to enrich and expand understandings of the DPRK’s national identity, challenging entrenched narratives and ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: In late October 1946, the centrally positioned North Korean Provisional People’s Committee placed an ad in the newspaper Rodong sinmun (Workers’ daily) soliciting lyrics for a “patriotic song” (aegukga) or national anthem to be judged in a competition. Requirements for entry included a “free-verse style that avoided the Korean traditional sijo form” and content that “was democratic and constructive” while “enhancing the Korean people’s sense of a national foundation” (Rodong sinmun [1946] 2018a). Although the recruitment ad stated that the winning entry would be revealed the next month, there is no record in the available source material of such a development taking place.Later accounts have instead highlighted a ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: The filmic scenery of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has long been subject to misconceptions and substantial underrepresentation within universal film discourses. Despite prevailing perceptions of North Korean cinema as predominantly propagandistic in nature owing to its political affiliations, it warrants recognition as a meaningful contributor to the global cinematic canon.This paper aims to enrich the nascent field of North Korean film studies by examining the reception of North Korean cinema within the socialist milieu of Hungary. Through an exploration of the altering perspectives of Hungarian film critics toward North Korean cinematic ventures, the study illuminates a path denoted by a ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, hereafter North Korea) cinema remains a relatively unexplored subject in film journalism, often dismissed as mere propaganda lacking artistic merit (see, for example, Fischer 2015, 70). Sociopolitical context significantly influences the evaluation of North Korean cinema, as evidenced by its starkly different reception in the Polish People’s Republic (PPR, hereafter Poland, 1952–1989) over time. Despite geographical distance, North Korean films garnered exclusively positive reviews in communist Poland, with critical comments remaining notably mild and often attributed to “cultural differences.” In this paper, I examine North Korean film reception in Poland within the ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: On July 1, 1989, celebrants from over 170 countries filled Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium for the opening of the Thirteenth World Festival of Youth and Students, a marquee event by which the North Korean state meant to rival the 1988 Seoul Olympics. There, attendees encountered an enormous background depicting an archetypal young revolutionary who, raising his pencil, stared off dreamily into a solid white field over which an oversized question mark hovered (Figure 1). Formed by thousands of colored cards held in synchronized fashion by North Korean students seated along the far side of the stadium, the background emblematized the diverse and peculiar corpus of visual images representing youth culture that engulfed ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: In March 2022, while carrying out a survey of school-aged children in her local area, Pak Eunju, a teacher at Yaksu Primary School in Hyeongjesan District, Pyongyang, met a little girl named Ji Yeonmi. Yeonmi was unable to walk due to a physical disability, but Pak was determined she attend school the same as other children. From that time on, she piggybacked the little girl to and from school every day. One day Yeonmi asked, “Teacher, can’t my legs be cured' I want to wear new shoes and go to school on my feet” (Pyongyang Times 2023b). From then on, in addition to piggybacking her to school every day, Pak also carried her to hospital appointments. After a few months of physical therapy, Yeonmi was able to take ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Scholars and authors have meticulously chronicled the history of South Korean cinema, recently also turning to North Korean cinema. Interestingly, however, few books encompass both film industries within a single volume.1 To comprehensively acknowledge the political and social transformations on the Korean Peninsula, it is imperative to concurrently evaluate the cinematic directives of both Koreas. Each side often mirrors the other, and separate analyses can lead to misconstrued and erroneous conclusions.In his latest monograph, Political Moods: Film Melodrama and the Cold War in the Two Koreas, Travis Workman explores the “noncomparable” (1) national cinemas of the two Koreas. Both film industries, stemming from ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Social stratification is generally defined as “structured inequalities between social groups within societies” (Giddens and Sutton 2021). Modern sociologists typically classify social stratification into four main types based on the principle of status inequality: slavery, estate, caste, and class. While class plays a central role in shaping inequalities in industrial societies (Giddens 1973; Poulantzas 1975), social estates define inequalities in certain pre-industrial societies in Asia and Europe (Barber 1957). Unlike classes, estates represent a closed system characterized by rigid intergenerational status inheritance.Efforts have been made to establish consistent definitions of estates. In English-speaking ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Im Hwa (1908–1953) stands as a seminal figure in Korea’s leftist literary movement during the Japanese colonial rule. His versatile engagement as a poet, critic, and literary historian underpins his central role in the Korean Artist Proletarian Federation (KAPF) from its inception in 1925 until its dissolution in 1935. After the KAPF’s disbandment, Im turned to literary criticism advancing a leftist perspective. His scholarly endeavors culminated in a comprehensive historical account of modern Korean literature, a project he called the “History of New Literature” (Sinmunhaksa). Throughout this undertaking, Im sought not only to document literary history but also to recognize and elevate the KAPF’s contributions as ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Choe Munhwan (1916–1975) was a leading social scientist in early Cold War South Korea. After taking professorships at major South Korean universities such as Korea University and Yonhi College (present-day Yonsei University), his career culminated in 1966 in his inauguration as the tenth president of Seoul National University.1 He is also known for his close relationships with Park Chung Hee (Pak Jeonghui) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Nevertheless, the intellectual trajectory of this theoretical sociologist and historian of economics remains obscure in both Korean- and English-language scholarship. Choe’s extensive work on theoretical sociology itself deserves serious attention in the history of the social ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Bongsan Talchum’s second act, the dance of the Eight Dark-Faced Monks.1At the beginning of the scene of the eight dark-faced monks, a monk is lying prone in the center of the performance space. As the music begins, he moves, slowly. His motions are those of a man so drunk he is barely conscious. The dance is extremely difficult to execute, but if done well the elevating of a leg and the lazy circles it sketches in the air are matched to the music and perfectly convey the impression of a drunk trying to test the connection between mental synapses and muscle. At last, the monk is able to rise, and he drunkenly completes a series of dance motions to a slow beat, at which point another monk enters the stage. The second ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: I write this review in late November, the beginning of the year-end party (mangnyonhoe) season in Korea. Just last Friday, I met with several former middle school classmates for dinner and drinks. Throughout December, I expect invitations from my high school friends, several groups of friends I met in college, and even the Korean alumni association of the American university where I completed my doctoral degree. I certainly will not have time to accept all of them. Nevertheless, the prevalence of such meetings testifies to the (albeit significantly weakened) persistence of “neofamilism” in contemporary South Korea, as noted by Yong-Chool Ha in his book.This book is interested in explaining the process of ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: South Korea’s defense industry has recently garnered significant international attention with its rapid growth in arms exports. This industry had its beginnings decades earlier during the rule of Park Chung Hee (1961–1979), as Peter Banseok Kwon demonstrates in his book. Kwon’s narrative, however, is not just about tracing the origins of the defense industry. As the subtitle indicates, Kwon is fundamentally concerned with explaining how central national defense is to understanding South Korea’s much-vaunted rapid industrialization and even the Park regime itself.Kwon adds to the burgeoning literature on Korean militarism, including the pioneering work of Seungsook Moon (2005) and Carter Eckert (2016), and how it ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: Hegemonic mimicry “sought to understand the blurring of boundaries between innovation and plagiarism and between hegemony and underdevelopment that has occurred over the past several decades” (x). Kyung Hyun Kim argues that Korean popular culture was born and formed under the influence of hegemonic American and local cultures. However, to be more precise, the American culture discussed here by Kim more closely resembles African American culture. In that sense, this book is reminiscent of Crystal Anderson’s Soul in Seoul (University Press of Mississippi, 2000). It differs from Anderson’s work in that it extends beyond an explanation of K-pop as a mere imitation and appropriation of African American pop music. For ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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Abstract: In this timely published monograph, Kim Jihoon (Kim Jihun) focuses on the politics and aesthetics of activist filmmaking, offering a compelling historical survey and theoretical realignment of Korean documentary cinema spanning from 1981 to 2022. With its interdisciplinary framing and expansive scope, Kim’s project has foregrounded the activist and post-activist “tendencies” of Korean documentary cinema. The book is structured into two major parts: part I (three chapters) concerns “activism” and part II (four chapters) “post-activism,” with each organized chronologically.With this ambitious project, Kim Jihoon highlights how, since the early 1980s, nonfiction filmmaking and video practices in the independent and ... Read More PubDate: 2025-04-26T00:00:00-05:00
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