Korea
This talk explores the circulation of West African dance in contemporary Seoul through dance classes and festivals, and the perspectives of Korean individuals, particularly women, practicing West African dance on the corporeal and affective qualities of blackness and Koreanness. Based on an ethnographic case study on Guinean Dance Class at the Salim Health Co-op, a feminist and community-oriented organization, I show how the West African dance practice is mobilized as a “liberating” experience for the female dancing body that has been traditionally seen as lewd and suspicious throughout the...
Come enjoy the festivities as the Council on East Asian Studies kicks off the fall term and please join us in welcoming our new students, postdocs, and visiting scholars! RSVP to eastasian.studies@yale.edu by 09/02/16
A sixty-something woman, faced with the discovery of a heinous family crime and in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, finds strength and purpose when she enrolls in a poetry class. Directed by Chang-dong Lee. In Korean with English subtitles. Introduction by Dima Mironenko, CEAS Postdoctoral Associate & Lecturer in East Asian Languages and Literatures
Directed by Hong Sang-Soo (Kino Lorber, 2012, 89 min) A young film student and her mother run away to the seaside town of Mohang to escape their mounting debt. The young woman begins writing a script for a short film in order to calm her nerves. Three women named Anne appear, and each woman consecutively visits the seaside town of Mohang. The first Anne is a successful film director. The second Anne is a married woman secretly in an affair with a Korean man. The third Anne is a divorcee whose husband left her for a Korean woman. A young woman tends to the small hotel by the Mohang foreshore...
Directed by Im Kwon Taek (Kino Lorber, 2002, 116 min) Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Director award, CHIHWASEON is a vivid portrait of the turbulent life and times of Korea’s greatest artist. As remarkably embodied by Choi Min-sik (Old Boy), the temperamental, passionate brush master Jang Seung-up paints with a martial artist’s fervor while indulging a rock star’s single-minded lust for life. Amidst the tumult and destruction of nineteenth century Korea, “Ohwon” as he comes to be called, fights to escape both the rigid artistic boundaries and the social...
Directed by July Jung (Pinehouse, Now Films, 2014, 119 min) The head of a local police substation becomes involved in the case of a young girl experiencing family violence. As she tries to protect the girl from her violent stepfather she becomes aware that she is keeping a secret. Curated and introduced by Dima Mironenko, CEAS Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in East Asian Languages & Literatures Dima Mironenko is a film and cultural historian of North Korea. His research focuses on the history of everyday. His dissertation, “A Jester with...
Directed by Soh-Young Kim (Third World Newsreel, 2000, 93 min) This documentary traces the trajectory of a Korean diasporic community in the former Soviet Union. Placed in internment camps by Stalin during World War II, the plight of a generation of Korean-Russians was documented in secret by the artist Shin Sun-nam, whose epic painting ‘Requiem’ has only recently been made public. Curated and introduced by Dima Mironenko, CEAS Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in East Asian Languages & Literatures Dima Mironenko is a film and cultural historian...
Directed by Soon-mi Yoo (Rosa Filmes, 2014, 72 min) Songs from the North is an essay film which looks differently at the enigma of North Korea, a country typically seen only through the distorted lens of jingoistic propaganda and derisive satire. Interweaving footage from the director’s three visits to North Korea, together with songs, spectacle, popular cinema and archival footage, Songs from the North tries to understand, on their own terms, the psychology and popular imagination of the North Korean people and the political ideology of absolute love which continues to drive the nation...
Sin Saimdang (1504-1551) is undoubtedly the most famous female artist in Korean history, but why and how do we remember her? Even though we do not know what Saimdang looked like, we find her image on the 50 000 Won banknote. Facts about her life are scattered and none of the remaining works attributed to her, including painting, calligraphy and embroidery, can be confirmed as authentic. Yet, the material is overwhelming: about a hundred paintings are ascribed to Saimdang. Since the sixteenth century the literature and visual material has grown, with every century contributing its own ideas...
In 1966, Pyongyang releases its first color light comedy film, Merry Ring (dir. Kim Yŏng), ushering a new era of politically correct cinema in North Korea, with the musical comedy genre as its crown jewel. After years of unsuccessful struggle against the rowdy audiences that would systematically hijack screenings of propaganda films at the nation’s movie theaters, the state film studio finally decides to make a bold move and give its troublemaking patrons the circus they had only been too eager to experience. An adaptation of Charlie Chaplin’s 1928 silent classic, The Circus, this inaugural...
Despite strong theoretical claims that politicians should target distributive benefits to swing voters and competitive districts, the empirical evidence is mixed. This paper resolves the inconsistencies by focusing on the time-varying incentives of an incumbent government. To the extent that election-motivated behavior entails directing government resources to marginal voters and constituencies, this behavior can be expected to peak in the period just prior to an election. An analysis of subsidy allocation in South Korea provides evidentiary support for this claim. In general, more subsidies...
North Korea is the world’s sole Communist hereditary dynasty; the world’s only literate, industrialized, urbanized peacetime economy to have suffered a famine; the world’s most cultish totalitarian system; and the world’s largest military in terms of manpower and defense spending proportional to population and national income. These contradictions often render North Korea misunderstood. Dr. Lee will address five most common myths about North Korea that have policy implications, and offer a prescription for debunking them. Sung-Yoon Lee is Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professorship of Korean...
This talk concerns the work of the prominent Korean lay Buddhist and entrepreneur Yu Guanbin (1891-1933) in Shanghai during the mid-1920s and early-30s. Yu collaborated with the Chinese Buddhist reformer Taixu (1890–1947) to promote a transnational Buddhist discourse called “the Buddha-ization movement” (fohua yundong). Yu also acted as a bridge between Korean and Chinese Buddhism by undertaking the project of rebuilding an eleventh-century Korean temple, Koryŏsa, in Hangzhou. In this talk, Kim examines how Yu’s engagement in these projects is a distinctive case of modern East Asian...
Please join us for a joint Yale Asian Studies Councils’ Reception in Philadelphia, PA at this year’s AAS Conference! Information on the Work of the Councils Will Be Available Light refreshments will be served.
A book talk on • The past and future status of the field of Korean art history in the U.S. • Materialization of this book project • Introduction to the chapter on the seventh-century esoteric Buddhist ritual in Silla by Professor Kim Desserts and drinks will be provided.
A wave of populism is sweeping the world. The talk will first compare the different forms populism takes in various countries, reflecting a variety of historical, political, and social conditions. Buruma will discuss what populist movements have in common; why elites are under fire everywhere, in Europe, the US, and Asia; the effects of the Internet, globalization, and immigration. Buruma will then conclude by looking at the common responses of the old elites, talk about why they are inadequate, and see what could possibly be done better.
Please join CEAS in ushering in the Year of the Horse, in addition to the launch of our new website! Please RSVP to eastasian.studies@yale.edu
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