Description

The presentation examines the way in which issues of colonialism have found channels of expression in generic conventions and tropes of horror film in South Korea. It interrogates problem of representation concerning colonialism in South Korean cinema in general and advances to convey how the repressed history of colonialism comes to surface through stories of specter and apparition. In particular, the presentation brings attention to a recent horror film called “Epitaph”, and the way it rehearses and thematizes thorny issues of colonialism, including inter-ethnic romance, historical amnesia and erasure, and reconciliation.

Jinsoo An is Assistant Professor at School of Design and Media of Hongik University in Korea. He completed Ph.D. at UCLA with the dissertation on golden age melodrama films of Korea (from 1953 to 1972). He has written on the topics related to Korean cinema of the 1960s including representation of Christianity, historical drama, courtroom drama, cult film and Manchurian action film. His current project focuses on representation of colonialism as historical past in South Korean cinema. His other interest includes history and visuality of interactive media art.

Description

James Scarth Gale (1863-1937) was one of the earliest Westerners to reside in Korea for any length of time. Although he is known to history mainly for his missionary activity in Korea, he did pioneering work in the fields of Korean language, linguistics, and literature. The significance of his accomplishments in these areas is clear already from his published works, which include the mother of all Korean-to-English dictionaries, his Korean Grammatical Forms, and his translations of Chunhyang chon and Kuunmong. While Gale is not unknown or unappreciated as a scholar and translator of Korean literature, he seems to be remembered (and praised) primarily for his translation of Kuunmong, published in 1922. However, our research at the University of British Columbia has uncovered an astounding wealth of translations, both from the hanmun and from vernacular Korean, and both in prose and poetry. It is the purpose of this panel to situate several of these various translations within the still sparse body of traditional Korean literature in English translation, to analyze the works of literature themselves, and to evaluate Gales translations of them. To these ends Ross King discusses Gales translations of prose works written in classical Chinese, Leif Olsen analyzes two of the dozen or so Choson vernacular fictional narratives translated by Gale, and Si Nae Park treats Gales translation of part of an important nineteenth-century yadam collection.

Presenters:

James Scarth Gales Translations from Korean Hanmun Sources
Ross King, Professor of Korean, University of British Columbia

Canadian James Scarth Gales Translations of Choson-Period Fiction
Leif Olsen, Ph.D. Student, University of British Columbia

Gale’s Translations from the 19th c. yadam collection, _Kimun ch’onghwa_
Si Nae Park, Ph.D. Student in Premodern Korean Literature University of British Columbia

Discussant
Bruce Fulton,Associate Professor
Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation University of British Columbia

Description

North Korea is perennially in the news. Recent preparations for what appears to be another long range missile test have much of North East Asia on alert. The Six Party Talks effort to negotiate away North Korea’s nuclear program appears to be stalled and levels of rhetoric and threats out of Pyongyang towards South Korea have reached levels seldom heard since the end of the Cold War. Yet behind the scene there is an equally important but less understood humanitarian crisis going on in North Korea. Located in the middle of what has been one of the most economically vibrant regions in the world, North Korea has suffered decades of food shortages, a serious famine in the late 1990s that may have claimed over a million lives, and a remarkable contraction of its economy. All this has taken place in one of the most closed and oppressive societies on earth. As information regarding the human rights situation in North Korea has trickled out, a growing body of private, governmental, and international organizations has begun to focus on North Korea’s humanitarian crisis amid all the clamor over security issues. As part of the North Korea Human Rights Act of 2004 the U.S. Congress mandated the creation of a “Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea,” a position filled without distinction during the Bush Administration and which has yet to be filled by the Obama Administration. L. Gordon Flake, Executive Director the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation will discuss the issues and challenges facing the new U.S. Administration, Canada, and the rest of the World in addressing the situation in North Korea today.

L. Gordon Flake joined the Mansfield Foundation in February 1999. He was previously a Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Program on Conflict Resolution at The Atlantic Council of the United States and prior to that Director for Research and Academic Affairs at the Korea Economic Institute of America.

Description

Mike Kim worked with refugees on the Chinese border for four years and recounts their experiences of enduring famine, sex-trafficking, and torture, as well as the inspirational stories of those who overcame tremendous adversity to escape the repressive regime of their homeland and make new lives.

One of the few Americans granted entry into the secretive “Hermit Kingdom,” Kim came to know the isolated country and its people intimately. His North Korean friends entrusted their secrets to him as they revealed the government’s brainwashing tactics and confessed their true thoughts about the repressive regime that so rigidly controls their lives. Civilians and soldiers alike spoke of what North Koreans think of Americans and war with America. Children remembered the suffering they endured through the famine. Women and girls recalled their horrific sex-trafficking experiences. Former political prisoners shared their memories of beatings, torture, and executions in the gulags. With the permission of these courageous individuals, Kim now shares their stories and recounts his dramatic experiences leading North Koreans to asylum through the 6,000-mile modern-day underground railway through Asia. His unflinching narrative exposes the truth about North Korea, stripping away the last veils that still shroud this brutal dictatorship.

Please note: the opinions expressed are those of the speaker and not necessarily those of the North Korea Research Group

Mike Kim is the author of Escaping North Korea: Defiance and Hope in the World’s Most Repressive Country. Kim is a Korean-American who, in 2003, moved to the China-North Korea border and founded Crossing Borders, a nonprofit dedicated to providing humanitarian assistance to North Korean refugees. On New Year’s Day 2003, he decided to give up his financial planning business in Chicago and left for China on a one-way ticket carrying little more than two duffle bags. While living near the North Korean border, he operated undercover as a student of North Korean taekwondo, training under North Korean masters from Pyongyang – eventually receiving a second-degree blackbelt. During his time in China, he learned of the hundreds of thousands of North Koreans fleeing to China through a 6,000-mile modern-day underground railroad in search of food and freedom. He has interviewed hundreds of North Koreans and in his book he recounts their experiences of famine, defection, sex-trafficking, and torture in gulags.

Description

How do Confucian patriarchy and socialist imaginary form a complicit partnership in shaping women’s corporeal practices in China (PRC) and North Korea? And how do media in those states create a seamless continuity between the stage and everyday life through bodily practices such as dress codes and dance? This talk explores the ways in which China and North Korea invented revolutionary women by propagating idealized female bodily images through pervasive media practices. Although China and North Korea share a long living tradition of Confucianism and struggle against colonialism, each state took a distinctive path in promoting revolutionary ideals through women’s bodies—militaristic ballet in the case of China and traditional dance in the case of North Korea. This talk will address how performance theory and national history can ultimately account for such discursive development of propaganda practices in two East Asian socialist states.

Suk-Young Kim is Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her research has been acknowledged by the International Federation for Theatre Research New Scholar’s Prize (2004), the American Society for Theater Research Fellowship (2006), the Library of Congress Kluge Fellowship (2006-7), and the Academy of Korean Studies Encouragement of Research Grant. She is currently completing a book project titled Illusive Utopia: Theater, Film, and Everyday Performance in North Korea (University of Michigan Press, forthcoming), which explores how state produced propaganda performances intersect with everyday life practice in North Korea. Another book project, Long Road Home: Testimony of a North Korean Camp Survivor (coauthored with Kim Yong) is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

Description

The post-9/11 redistribution of US military forces in the world is usually discussed within the framework of Washington’s global policies and war on terror. In South Korea, this development has further exacerbated the public resentment against the presence of American bases, and has engendered strong reactions within the population, ranging from heated debates on the general wisdom of keeping American troops on Korean soil to organised opposition movements against specific military bases. This research examines the social movement which was generated by the recent plan to relocate the U.S. Yongsan garrison to Pyeongtaek, about seventy kilometers South of Seoul. Using coverage by the Korean mainstream and alternative media of the grassroots opposition to that relocation, the study intends to determine how this struggle has been perceived by the general public, and it analyses the various agendas and strategies utilised by the different interest groups within this social movement.

Luc Walhain (Ph.D., Bowling Green State University) is Assistant Professor of History at St. Thomas University (Canada) where he teaches World and Asian History. His Korean ethnic background and upbringing in Europe, combined with his life and academic experience in the US and East Asia, have led him to develop a sense of global social awareness, and steered his research interests towards social and democratic movements in Korea, and the power and control of public discourse. His recent and future research projects include the socio-economic impact of military bases and militarisation of society.