Casimir Fields Forever? The History of Inter-Korean Relations, 1953-2013

Casimir Fields Forever? The History of Inter-Korean Relations, 1953-2013

Hyung-Gu Lynn - AECL/KEPCO Chair in Korean Research at the Institute of Asian Research (IAR), University of British Columbia; Editor, Pacific Affairs

Thursday, October 17, 2013 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Room 203, Luce Hall See map
34 Hillhouse Ave.
New Haven, CT 06511

According to the constant stream of media accounts, relations between North and South Korea are a predictably constant, frozen in a perpetual cease fire, or unstably liquid, always on the verge of a breakthrough or armageddon. This talk aim to depart from these approaches by taking a longer period of history than the news cycle permits and analyzing different dimensions and sites of North-South interactions to argue that while the absence of full normalized relations creates a figurative vacuum, interpretations and uses of international pressures for domestic purposes by both North and South, and the variety of inter-Korean interactions that have developed over the decades have created a limited range of options since 2000.

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Korea