CKS Colloquium Series
CKS Colloquium Series offers opportunities of conversations with experts in Korean Studies and Korea-related fields. The Spring 2021 semester will bring six specialists. More information will be added here as the details of each talk are finalized.
A HOUSE DIVIDED: THE LANGUAGE MOVEMENT IN POST-COLONIAL KOREA AND THE RISE OF PLURICENTRIC KOREAN (Feb, 24 @ 4:30 pm / Dr. Daniel Pieper)
After centuries of unification, the Korean peninsula was arbitrarily divided in 1950, with far-reaching ramifications. What has this meant for the Korean language? In this talk Pieper explores the indigenous Korean language movement to promote Korean language and writing under colonial domination and the roots of a schism that resulted in two rival factions of linguists.
MONUMENTAL GIFTS (Mar. 10 @ 8 pm / Artist Onejoon Che)
The North Korea's Mansudae Art Studio has constructed statues, monuments, and buildings
in 18 countries in Africa. Among them, roughly half of the countries received these
constructions from Kim Il-sung for free. Behind this North Korean diplomatic strategy
of offering statues, monuments, and buildings to Africa, there was a diplomatic competition
between North and South Korea.
Just after the Armistice at the end of the Korean War in 1953, the Military Demarcation
Line and the stationing of the U.S. Army in South Korea had always been an issue in
the United Nations. This has not been generally perceived in the Western world as
well as African countries.
ELITE GRAFFITI, KINSHIP, AND SOCIAL CAPITAL: PILGRIMAGES TO KŬMGANGSAN IN PRE-1900 KOREA (Mar. 30 @ 4:45 pm / Dr. Maya Stiller)
In this talk Dr. Stiller will preview her forthcoming book, Carving Status at Kŭmgangsan: Elite Graffiti in Premodern Korea, which establishes the importance of site-specific visual and material culture as an index of social memory construction.
DIVERGENCE ANGST: THE PROBLEM OF KOREAN LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY IN ANTIQUITY AND TODAY (Mar. 31 @ 4:30 pm / Dr. Ross King)
Could ‘Koreans’ understand each other in the Three Kingdoms period (37 BCE-935 CE) on the Korean peninsula? And what about North and South Koreans today? This talk starts with a discussion of what languages are thought to have been spoken on the Korean peninsula and in ‘Manchuria’ in antiquity, and examines the scant evidence we have about the language situation on the peninsula in conjunction with statements by modern-day scholars from North and South Korea on this issue (and the political ideologies behind these statements). The second half of the talk examines post-1945 anxieties about ‘linguistic divergence’ between North and South Korea, examining in turn North Korean characterizations of language in the South and vice versa, before discussing some of the actual data about North-South linguistic divergence.
K-POP AS A GLOBAL POPULAR CULTURE: FROM TRANSCULTURAL FANDOM TO MEDIA CONSUMPTION (Apr. 1 @ 4:45 pm / Dr. Candace Epps-Robertson & Dr. Crystal Anderson)
It is no doubt that K-pop has become a fascinating global phenomenon, increasing in popularity immensely and spreading like wildfire over the past several years. In this panel, Dr. Crystal Anderson and Dr. Candace Epps-Robertson, two academic scholars on Hallyu, will share their takes on some of the unique subject matters of K-pop, as well as answer questions from the audience! Dr. Crystal Anderson will explore how the media defines, shapes, and sometimes distorts perceptions of K-pop music, artists, and fans, along with how fans can contextualize K-pop’s history and influences to avoid this kind of erasure and marginalization. Dr. Epps-Robertson will focus on one specific group and fandom — BTS and ARMY — and discuss the ways in which ARMY responds to BTS’s messages through the creation of fan-driven services and efforts aimed at philanthropy, education, and community
THE IMPACT OF UN SANCTIONS ON NORTH KOREA'S CHILDREN: THE RE-EMERGENCE OF FAMINE CONDITIONS IN 2021 (April 14 @ 4:30 pm / Dr. Hazel Smith)
The United Nations sanctions regime has been in place since 2006 but in 2016 and in 2017 it was expanded such as to target the civilian as well as the military economy. North Korea suffered famine in the 1990s that killed around half a million people. Those who suffered the most were those who, as in every famine, had the fewest means of helping themselves; including children, the sick, the frail elderly. The proximate cause of famine was the cut off of oil exports from China and Russia. North Korea does not produce its own oil or natural gas but given these commodities provide essential inputs (everywhere in the world) into agricultural production, for fertilisers, pesticides, transport, to fuel agricultural equipment and irrigation facilities, etc, food production required to feed the population fell such that there was insufficient food to feed the population. Since the 2017 UN energy sanctions, North Korea’s domestic food production has sharply fallen to such a low level that it can only feed about two thirds of its 25 million population from local resources and then at a bare minimal subsistence ration. This talk reviews how the 2017 UN sanctions have reproduced the proximate conditions that had previously precipitated famine in North Korea.
