Crossing Borders: Korean Nationalism and Contemporary Theatre

2009 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 363-378
Author(s):  
Yoo Kim
Keyword(s):  
Associate Professor ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Contemporary Theatre ◽  
Contested Space ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Korean Nationalism ◽  
Selection Of

In October 2007 South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun walked across the inter-Korean border for a summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il. Although adhering to the primordialist view of nationhood, this state-led border-crossing also indicates the effects of globalization. As the heavily militarized inter-Korean border is permeated by interaction between ethnic nationalism, the nation's anti-colonialist history, and the transnational forces, the image of border-crossing becomes a metaphor for a contested space of national unification. This article examines a selection of works by three contemporary South Korean playwrights who, from a post-nationalist perspective, have emerged to contest the contradictory aspects and trajectories of the past ten years of populist nationalism. Yoo Kim focuses on the ways these post-nationalist plays employ the motifs of border-crossing and borderland encounter to challenge the romantic and exclusionary narratives of the conventional nationalist theatre. Yoo Kim is an Associate Professor in English at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea. His recent article, ‘Mapping Utopia in the Post-Ideological Era: Lee Yun-taek's The Dummy Bride’, was published in Theatre Research International in 2007.

Bitter Taste of Paradise: North Korean Refugees in South Korea

2006 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Lankov
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Social Adjustment ◽  
Bitter Taste ◽  
Korean Society ◽  
South Korean ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
North Korean Refugees ◽  
North Korean Defectors ◽  
To Come

This article deals with the problems of North Korean defectors currently living in South Korea. In the past, most such defectors came from privileged groups in the North Korean population, and their adjustment to the new environment did not pose a significant problem. However, from the mid-1990s, defectors began to come from the far less privileged groups. They experience serious problems related to jobs, education, crime, and social adjustment. Recent years have seen a dramatic but not always openly stated change in the official South Korean attitude toward defectors: from a policy explicitly aimed at encouraging defection, Seoul has moved to the policy of quietly discouraging it. There are fears that encouraging defection will undermine the policy of peaceful engagement with the North. There is also the perception that refugees are outsiders, not quite adjustable to the conditions of South Korean society and thus a social and budgetary burden.

Contextualizing Revolutionary Operas

2020 ◽  
pp. 135-158
Author(s):  
Keith Howard
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Kim Il Sung ◽  
The North ◽  
Chinese Model ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
Korean Nationalism ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Collective Creation ◽  
The Impact

Chapter 5 is the second of three chapters on “revolutionary operas.” It explores how revolutionary operas reflect and are distinct from parallel genres in the Soviet Union, as well as how they may have been influenced by Chinese model works. It shows how ideology, including Soviet socialist realism and North Korean nationalism, and also collective creation and “seed theory,” is embedded in operas. It discusses the involvement of the North Korean leadership, and in particular Kim Jong Il, in opera creation, and explores the impact of comments made by the leadership after the premieres of the first three operas. The chapter asks what was known about opera in Korea before 1945, offering a discussion of the traditional genre of p’ansori, its twentieth-century ch’anggŭk staged equivalent, and how these two genres—and specific musicians associated with them who moved from Seoul to Pyongyang and continued their careers there into the 1960s—fared. These older forms were effectively stopped dead when Kim Il Sung remarked that they were reminiscent of a time when people traveled by donkey and wore horsehair hats, and, after the five revolutionary operas, they were replaced by “people’s operas” in the new, revolutionary opera mold.

QuiltSpeak

2021 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Diana Bell-Kite
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Selection Of

The exhibit QuiltSpeak: Uncovering Women’s Voices Through Quilts provides a model for using material culture research to unearth the experiences of marginalized historical actors. Each of the forty quilts from the North Carolina Museum of History’s permanent collection displayed in QuiltSpeak—made by a racially and economically diverse selection of quilters from the past two hundred years—served as a portal into a woman’s life and a representation of her self-expression. Interactive elements empowered visitors to decode material culture themselves and connect their own experiences to the quiltmakers’. This article examines the exhibit’s conceptualization, development, and outcomes with the contention that heretofore unheard voices can often be discovered right under our proverbial noses.

The Paradox of Postcolonial Korean Nationalism: State-Sponsored Cultural Policy in South Korea, 1965–Present

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sang Mi Park
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Policy ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Diplomatic Relations ◽  
South Korean Government ◽  
South Korean ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
The North ◽  
Korean Nationalism ◽  
Cultural Experiences

Abstract This paper examines the process by which the South Korean government revived Japanese forms of cultural policy to mobilize the populace in support of state goals, thus reproducing colonial cultural experiences in postcolonial times. Facing threats to their authority from the North Korean communist alternative, the inequalities of rapid economic development, and the questionable legitimacy of their unelected military governments, successive South Korean regimes expanded cultural policies to create a shared sense of national identity. While placing particular emphasis on Park Chung Hee’s adaptation of Japanese cultural projects to uphold the legitimacy of his regime after the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1965, I also underscore how later regimes managed many colonial cultural experiences to create their own national cultural policies. My discussion of continuities and discontinuities in cultural practice between these two East Asian nations contributes to a better understanding of the transnational exchange of the ideals and structures used to facilitate state goals.

Pyongyang's Survival Strategy: Tools of Authoritarian Control in North Korea

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Byman ◽  
Jennifer Lind
Keyword(s):  
Use Of Force ◽  
Domestic Institutions ◽  
Information Control ◽  
Policy Planning ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Kim Jong Il ◽  
The Future ◽  
Foreign Governments ◽  
Coups D'etat

Speculation about the future of the North Korean regime has been intense for nearly two decades. In the 1990s, economic crises and famine led to predictions of the Kim regime's imminent downfall. Today analysts highlight impending famine as well as threats to the regime's position brought by eroding information control. Several theories of authoritarian control help to explain how Kim Jong-il and his family have remained in power and how this might change over time. The Kim regime has employed a variety of authoritarian “tools” to protect itself both from popular revolt and from internal coups. Its social policies, reliance on certain ideas and nationalism, and use of force prevent the onset of revolution. Through numerous other tools (elite co-optation, manipulation of foreign governments for financial aid, and the “coupproofing” of domestic institutions), the regime protects itself from coups d'état and elite unrest. This framework not only helps to explain the past resilience of the regime, but it suggests that the regime is not in danger of being unseated by coups or revolution. Yet it also suggests that the regime has not adequately prepared for succession after Kim's death. This analysis has implications for policy planning about the future of the Korean Peninsula, as well as for negotiations with and coercive strategies toward Pyongyang.

Integrated FAHP-VIKOR model for green supplier selection in a Nickle coating SME

2020 ◽  
pp. 133-139
Author(s):  
Sanatan Ratna ◽  
B Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Staff Training ◽  
Supplier Selection ◽  
Fuzzy Ahp ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Supplier Evaluation ◽  
Green Supplier Selection ◽  
The Past ◽  
Coating Industry ◽  
Sustainability Issue ◽  
Selection Of

In the past few decades, there has been lot of focus on the issue of sustainability. This has occurred due to the growing concerns related to climate change and the growing awareness about environmental concerns. Also, the competition at global level has led to the search for the most sustainable route in the industries. The current research work deals with the selection of green supplier in a Nickle coating industry based on certain weighted green attributes. For this purpose, a hybrid tool comprising of Fuzzy AHP (Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy) and VIKOR (VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) is used. The Fuzzy AHP is used for assigning proper weights to the selected criteria for supplier evaluation, while VIKOR is used for final supplier selection based on the weighted criteria. The three criterions for green supplier selection are, Ecological packaging, Corporate socio-environmental responsibility and Staff Training. The outcome of the integrated model may serve as a steppingstone to other SMEs in different sectors for selecting the most suitable supplier for addressing the sustainability issue.

Interrogating the Constitutionality of Federal Character Principle in Nigeria

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (07) ◽  
pp. 20492-20498
Author(s):  
Aborisade Olasunkanmi ◽  
Christopher Agulanna
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Research Work ◽  
National Unity ◽  
The Past ◽  
The North ◽  
Inhibiting Factors

This work interrogates federal character principle (FCP) in Nigeria. The FCP was designed to fundamentally address the striking features of Nigeria politics of intense struggles for power among the different ethnic groups in the country between the elites from the North and their Southern counterparts and the various segments, but the practice of FCP in Nigeria so far raises curiosity and doubts. Given the outcome of the interrogation, this research work discovered and conclude that federal character has not indeed achieve its objective in the Nigeria, the study finds that Ethnocentrism, Elitism, Mediocrity, Mutual suspicion amongst others accounts for some inhibiting factors of the FCP in Nigeria. Like many other provisions of the Constitution, the Federal Character principle was meant to correct some imbalances experienced in the past, but it has created more problems than it has attempted to solve. Rather than promote national unity, it has disunited Nigerians. There is an urgent need to use more of professionals and result oriented Nigerians to carry out national tasks, than to use unprogressive people due to this "Federal character" issue. Nigeria should be a place where one's track records and qualifications are far greater than just "where they come from" or their lineage if Nigerian truly want to progress.

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