Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub Korean Studies Seminars

The Monash University Korean Studies Research Hub (MUKSRH) helps to coordinate Korean Studies research and educational activities in the Melbourne and metropolitan area. MUKSRH holds regular seminars to showcase the work of scholars researching Korea-related topics.

This page contains information about MUKSRH seminars between 2017 and 2022.

For information about the latest MUKSRH seminars and the Monash Korean Studies Research Hub Beyond Borders Seminar Series 2023-8, please click here.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series 2022

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series 2021 events

[Special Interview seminar and Q&A] ATS3321 Korean Research Project and Translating Interviews with North Korean Defectors'

Dr. Adam Zulawnik, Ben (Taehee) Kim, and Sneha Karri

Date: Wednesday 17^th March 2021, 1-2pm

Abstract

With the growing popularity in Korean translation and recent expansion of Translation Studies units to include Korean streams at both undergraduate and graduate levels at Monash University, I designed a new undergraduate student research-focused unit titled Korean Research Project (ATS3321). The unit, which commenced in Semester 2 2020, is an elite third-year unit which allows for Korean Studies researchers at Monash to engage with advanced Korean Studies students in a research project focusing on various subfields in Korean Studies. The inaugural run, which I coordinated, focused on the critically annotated translation of Talbuk Yeongung samsibsamin teukbyeol inteobyu (Interviews with North Korean Defectors). The book will be published with Routledge this coming June and is a fine example of the potential for undergraduate research output. This presentation is a summary of the unit as well as an introduction to the final product (Interviews with North Korean Defectors), followed by a presentation about learning experiences from Sneha and Ben, two students who completed the unit in 2020.

Bio

Adam is an Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Monash. Adam's research interests include translation theory, Korean/Japanese Studies, East Asia relations, history, politics, and language. His doctorate (2018) focused on the theoretical and functional issues behind the translation of controversial documents juxtaposed against Korea-Japan relations. Adam is part of the Monash University Korean Studies team working to expand a Korean Studies nexus in Australia through funding from the AKS and has taught introductory and proficient levels of Korean as well as Korean translation. His most recent publication is “Death to the translator!” – a case study on risk in translation (AALITRA Review, 2020).

Sneha Karri and Taehee (Ben) Kim are Korean Studies students who completed ATS3321 Korean Research project in 2020 with High Distinction. They are interested in Translation of Korean into English (and vice versa) and hope to continue their academic journeys in Korean and Translation Studies.

Recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1UVTwK67HMhTh0uUpRMZUKRXr6qWQQB/view?usp=sharing

[Film screening] 'Shusenjo: The Main Battlefield of the Comfort Women Problem followed by Q&A with director Miki Dezaki'

Date: Thursday 22^th April 2021, 5pm (online via KANOPY). Q&A from 7pm.

Synopsis

The “comfort women” issue is perhaps Japan’s most contentious present-day diplomatic quandary.  Inside Japan, the issue is dividing the country across clear ideological lines. Supporters and detractors of “comfort women” are caught in a relentless battle over empirical evidence, the validity of oral testimony, the number of victims, the meaning of sexual slavery, and the definition of coercive recruitment. Credibility, legitimacy and influence serve as the rallying cry for all those involved in the battle. In addition, this largely domestic battleground has been shifted to the international arena, commanding the participation of various state and non-state actors and institutions from all over the world.  This film delves deep into the most contentious debates and uncovers the hidden intentions of the supporters and detractors of comfort women. Most importantly it finds answers to some of the biggest questions for Japanese and Koreans: Were comfort women prostitutes or sex slaves? Were they coercively recruited?  And, does Japan have a legal responsibility to apologize to the former comfort women?

Bio

Miki Dezaki is a graduate of the Graduate Program in Global Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo.  He worked for the Japan Exchange Teaching Program for five years in Yamanashi and Okinawa before becoming a Buddhist monk in Thailand for one year.  He is also known as "Medamasensei" on Youtube, where he has made comedy videos and videos on social issues in Japan. His most notable video is “Racism in Japan,” which led to numerous online attacks by Japanese neo-nationalists who attempted to deny the existence of racism and discrimination against Zainichi Koreans (Koreans with permanent residency in Japan) and Burakumin (historical outcasts still discriminated today). "Shusenjo" is his directorial debut.

Seminar 1 - 'Korean history and Cinema: Contrasting approaches'

Assoc. Prof. Andrew David Jackson and Dr. Niall McMahon (Monash University)

Date: Wednesday 21^th April 2021, 1-2pm

Abstract

In this talk Dr Jackson and Dr McMahon present two contrasting approaches to the exploration of Korean history via cinema.

Cinephilia, Art Film and Art Houses in Post-dictatorship South Korea (Andrew David Jackson)

In this talk, Dr Jackson looks at cinema exhibition as social history. Between the late 1980s and late 1990s, young South Koreans embarked upon a period of frenetic consumption of foreign art film. This brief period of cinephilia boom resulted in the publication of influential film magazines KINO and Cine2,  the establishment of notable international film festivals, the opening of South Korea's first art houses, and inspired a generation of Korean filmgoers to consume film in innovative ways. Using historical approaches to cinema exhibition by Robert C. Allen, Annette Kuhn, and Barbara Wilinsky, this study explores the significance of early South Korean art film exhibition and consumption for our understanding of a generation of young South Koreans liberated from three decades of military dictatorship.

The Golden Age and the depiction of history in South Korean cinema post-Korean War (Niall McMahon)

In this talk, Dr McMahon examines the history of South Korean cinema post-Korean War. After the end of the war, South Korean cinema entered what is known as its “Golden Age” (1950s-1960s). These formative decades were heavily impacted by multiple factors such as the first removal and then reintroduction of film taxation, intrusive film laws such as the Screen Quota System as well as socio-political factors such as the National Security Law and the country’s intense anti-communist stance in all avenues of their culture. Using the 1961 Korean War film Five Marines as a key example, this study will examine how the developments and ideological precepts of the Golden Age directly affected film production and how the depiction of South Korean history was altered as a result.

Bio

Dr Andrew David Jackson is currently Associate Professor of Korean Studies at Monash University. He obtained his PhD in Korean history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2011.  As well as pre-modern history, Andrew is interested in modern Korean history and society, South and North Korean film, and theories of rebellion and revolution.

Dr Niall McMahon is a Korea Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow working in Perth, Western Australia. His main research interests are South Korean cinema, the historical film genre and the war film genre, with a specific focus on films that depict the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War.

Seminar 2 - 'Glossolalia and the Problem of Language in South Korea'

Prof. Nicholas Harkness (Harvard University)

Date: Friday 30^th April 2021, 9-10am 

Abstract

Speaking in tongues, also known as glossolalia, has long been a subject of curiosity as well as vigorous theological debate. A worldwide phenomenon that spans multiple Christian traditions, glossolalia is both celebrated as a supernatural gift and condemned as semiotic alchemy. In South Korea, glossolalia is practiced widely across Protestant denominations and congregations. This lecture addresses the popularity of glossolalia in South Korea, situating the practice at the intersection of numerous, often competing social forces, interwoven religious legacies, and spiritual desires that have been amplified by Christianity’s massive institutionalization.

Bio

Nicholas Harkness is the Modern Korean Economy and Society Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specializes in linguistic and semiotic approaches to sociocultural analysis. His research in South Korea has resulted in publications on various topics, including voice, language, music, religion, ritual, kinship, liquor, and the city of Seoul. His first book, Songs of Seoul: An Ethnography of Voice and Voicing in Christian South Korea (University of California Press, 2014), was awarded the Edward Sapir Book Prize by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (Co-Winner, 2014, American Anthropological Association). Harkness's second book is titled Glossolalia and the Problem of Language (University of Chicago Press, 2021).

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/G/bo68655055.html

Seminar 3 - 'Reflections on 20 years of Fieldwork, Writing, and Publishing on North Korea'

Assoc. Prof. Sandra Fahy (Sophia University)

Date: Wednesday 19^th May 2021, 4-5pm

Abstract

This presentation shares my experience of working on the topic of North Korea from the earliest stages of my career to the present. It gives a "behind the scenes" view of the experience - the things we usually don't write or talk about - of being a non-Korean, white, woman scholar of Korea approaching the fraught topic of human rights north of the 38th parallel. It is, therefore, an ethnography of my experience. I have often felt that I should write "the book beneath the book" - by this I mean the story of what lead to my interest in Korea, what it was like to study Korean language in South Korea when my interests were in the North, and it was like to conduct the research with North Korean defectors in South Korea and Japan – survivors of the 1990s famine – for my PhD, which resulted in my book on 1990s famine Marching through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea and to a lesser extent my second book. The talk elaborates on the phenomena of working with human subjects on sensitive, traumatic topics – the impact of this on the researcher, and the informant. This talk is designed to offer students and the audience of researchers working in similar topics. My aim, in presenting my experiences of typically overlooked or under discussed aspects of the work is to normalize and represent the human in the researcher and in the research.

Bio

Sandra Fahy is a former visiting fellow with the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. She is associate professor of anthropology at Sophia University in Tokyo. She holds a PhD from SOAS University of London. She grew up in Canada, but has lived in South Korea and Japan for 12 years.  She is the author of Marching through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea (New York: Columbia University Press 2015) and Dying for Rights: Putting North Korea’s Rights Abuses on the Record (New York: Columbia University Press 2019). She is currently working on a book titled States, Lies and Video: a century of states using video to deny allegations of rights abuses.

Seminar 4 - 'Translating Korea and Korean Literature'

Brother Anthony (Sogang University)

Date: Thursday 26^th August 2021, 5-6pm

Abstract

Translations of Korean poetry and fiction into English were almost unknown until the 1970s. Any study of published translations needs to explore (1) what works / writers were selected; (2) who translated them; (3) where and how the translations were published; (4) how effective the publications were in attracting readers and “globalizing Korean Literature.” Brother Anthony has been publishing translations of modern Korean poetry and fiction for more than 30 years, but has recently been focusing more on contemporary fiction. This evening he will talk about these topics, although admitting that he has read very few of the translations he will mention. He will stress that the translations available do not allow students to obtain anything like a full picture or accurate overview of the course of modern Korean literary history. He thinks that in any case literary translation should not be undertaken with the aim of providing material for students. Works of poetry and fiction are not written to be studied but to be read thoughtfully and enjoyed.

Bio

Brother Anthony has been publishing translations of Korean poetry and fiction for over 30 years, since 1990. He will talk about some of the poets he has translated, reading a few of their poems. He will also evoke the few novels he has translated and briefly survey the general history of translation from Korean, ending with today's explosion of popular titles.

Brother Anthony was born in Britain in 1942, joined the monastic community of Taizé (France) in 1969, came to Korea in 1980, took Korean nationality in 1994. After teaching English literature at Sogang University (Seoul) for over 20 years, he is now an emeritus professor there. He has published over 60 volumes of translations and continues to be a prolific translator, although he often says that finding a publisher is much harder than translating.

Seminar 5 - 'When Artists Become the Product Placed: K-pop in Korean Commercials'

Assoc. Prof. Roald Maliangkay (ANU)

Date: Thursday 6^th September 2021, 5-6pm

Abstract

Until they began to be packaged for replay in the 1990s, music videos were created to sell a song and artist. The images were hard to forget and became the immediate connotation of the songs, often eclipsing their lyrics’ original intent. Because audiences learn how to interpret musical clues, however, it does not matter whether the original intent of a particular piece of music bears any relation to the medium or narrative in which it is newly embedded. But when it is used in a movie viewed by people other than the intended audience, music can disrupt. Where its purpose is to promote, as in commercials, music must therefore align well with its target audience. Claudia Bullerjahn (2006) identifies three key features of the use of music in television commercials that all rely on this alignment: motivation, opportunity, and ability. While the first and second features relate to the use of music to respectively attract and convey information, the third captures the use of music to help the target audience digest the message. But how do these features play out in TV commercials in South Korea, where celebrities, including K-pop idols, dominate the advertising world? Might a celebrity not distract the target audience from processing the commercial message embedded? Do the images of celebrities correspond with the commercials’ target audience? Focusing on the commercials and K-pop idols voted respectively most memorable and liked in nationwide surveys, in this talk I explore the combined use of music and K-pop idols in South Korean commercials since 2009 and examine how they have ensured the success of marketing campaigns.

Bio

Roald Maliangkay is Associate Professor of Korean Studies at the Australian National University. Fascinated by the factors driving fandom, the mechanics of cultural policy, and the convergence of major cultural phenomena, he analyses the history of Korean entertainment.

Seminar 6 - 'The Virtual Feast: Mukbang, Con-Man Comedy, and Blackness in Parasite (2019)'

Prof. Kyunghyun Kim (UC Irvine)

Date: Wednesday 15^th September 2021, 12-1pm

Abstract

This talk will focus on Parasite (dir. Bong Joon-ho, Kisaengch’ung) and probe the reasons why it had become one of the most successful films ever made outside Hollywood. This crime thriller successfully switches out predictable melodramatic codes usually reserved for blockbuster films for comedic conventions of wordplay, con-artist schemes, and food drama. Kim will argue that these themes not only problematize the division between real and fake and serve as a larger subject of the tension between haves and have-nots but also allow us to look at how food has lost its social or even cultural significance and has instead assumed a perverse, negative, and almost undesirable association with gluttony and psychological depression in the era of mukbang (eatcast). How the cynicism raised in the film compares against some of the code-switching themes in Hollywood comedies featuring African American stars will be probed.  The talk will also explore the career of writer/director Bong Joon-ho and contextualize Parasite within the Korean Cinema of the new millennium.

Bio

Prof. Kyung Hyun Kim is a creative writer, a scholar, and a film producer, who is currently a professor in the Department of East Asian Studies, UC Irvine. He has worked with internationally renowned directors such as Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong and Marty Scorsese, and also with American film producers Jason Blum and Steven Schneider. Prof. Kim is author of Virtual Hallyu: Korean Cinema of the Global Era, The Remasculinization of Korean Cinema, Hegemonic Mimicry: Korean Popular Culture of 21^st Century, all of them published by Duke University Press, and a Korean-language novel entitled In Search of Lost G (Ireo beorin G-reul chajaso, 2014) about a Korean mother combing through the US in search of her missing son during his junior year in a Massachusetts prep school.  He has coproduced and co-scripted two award-winning feature films Never Forever (2007, Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. Main Competition) and The Housemaid (2010, Cannes Film Festival Main Competition), and his co-scripted film screenplay, The Origins of a Detective (Hyeongsa eui kiwon), won the cash prize (US$ 30,000) by being selected for the 2019 Best Film Development Project by the Korean Film Commission. He has also written The Mask Debate, his first theatre screenplay, which premiered in February 2021 through UCI’s Illuminations: Chancellor’s Initiative in Arts and Drama YouTube channel.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series 2020 events

Seminar 1 - 'The Body, Cosmetic Surgery and the Discourse of ‘Westernisation of Korean Bodies’

Dr Jo Elfving-Hwang (UWA)

Date: Friday 9^th August 2020, 3-5pm

Abstract

In this presentation I will discuss some key meanings attached to aesthetic surgical practice and other biomedical technologies of the body that influence attitudes and uptake of cosmetic surgery practices in South Korea. However, rather than presenting an exhaustive set of motivations that might explain why individuals feel compelled to surgically alter their bodies, I take the body as a lens through which to illustrate some wider social and biomedical discourses that construct socio-somatic subjectivities (that is, how individuals relate to and experience their subjectivities through the body) in contemporary South Korea. In doing so, I seek to question the notion that the high uptake of cosmetic surgery can be explained in reference to nebulous concepts such as collectivism, or indeed desires for Westernising the body, as key motivations in decision-making. In particular, and drawing on Nikolas Rose’s work on biomedicine, power and subjectivity, I will show how individuals in Korea are positioned within broader discourses of modernity in ways that may prompt them to engage with aesthetic beauty and surgical procedures more readily than individuals in other socio-cultural contexts (such as Australia or the UK), where neoliberal discourses of investing in self may be less centred on the somatic aspects of individual subjectivity. Aside from the broad discourses of the body and society, I draw on Erving Goffman’s work on the presentation of self to illustrate how beauty interconnects with social status and everyday social etiquette in ways that draw on pre-industrial notions of interpersonal encounters and proper decorum (1959). I therefore locate the high uptake of cosmetic procedures in the intersection of individual desire, culturally contingent social etiquette and the growth of the aesthetic plastic surgery industries to illustrate some of the key discourses that inform individuals’ decisions about the way in which bodies are performed, managed and experienced.

Bio

Jo Elfving-Hwang (PhD, The University of Sheffield) is an Associate Professor of Korean Studies and Director of Korea Research Centre at the University of Western Australia. She has published in Korean beauty cultures, gender, ageing and cosmetic surgery in South Korea and is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled Beauty Matters: Beauty, Cosmetic Surgery and the Body in Korea.

Seminar 2 - 'Idol shipping culture: Exploring queer sexuality among fans of K-pop'

Dr Thomas Baudinette (Macquarie University)

Date: Friday 21^th August 2020, 3:30~5pm

Abstract

The practice of imagining idols within romantic and sexual relationships known as “shipping” is central to the global fandom of K-pop, allowing fans to develop affective relationships with their favorite celebrities through creative practices such as the writing of fan fiction. In particular, shipping practices that reimagine the members of popular boy groups such as EXO and BTS within homoerotic relationships are especially common among both heterosexual female fans and fans who express queer sexualities as a method of both affectively articulating their fandom as well as exploring their broader sexual desires via K-pop consumption. This chapter explores the homoerotic practice of shipping idols as a lens into the broader study of gender and sexuality in relation to K-pop idols, demonstrating the importance of fans’ sexual desires and attraction to K-pop fandom culture. The chapter begins by charting the emergence of shipping practices within Korean fandom, exploring how K-pop production companies strategically drew upon Japanese yaoi culture to encourage young women to consume K-pop, thus producing spaces within Korea’s patriarchal society where women’s sexual desires can be safely explored. The chapter then turns to an analysis of international shipping practices, presenting a comparative case study of BTS shipping within Japanese and Anglophone fandom spaces. This comparative analysis reveals that while BTS shipping in Japan tends to draw upon rigid logics derived from yaoi culture that conceptualize homoerotic relationships between men via sexual practices and behaviors divorced from identity, Anglophone shipping tends to instead overtly deploy North American LGBT identity politics. Nevertheless, the chapter argues that both practices possess queer potentials that allow fans to affectively explore their sexuality, affirming their sexual desires for K-pop idols. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of shipping in affirming the presence of queer fans within global K-pop culture.

Bio

Thomas Baudinette is Lecturer in International Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney. To date, his research has drawn upon the ethnographic tradition to investigate Japanese queer popular culture, including its spread throughout East and Southeast Asia. His first book, Regimes of Desire: Young Gay Men and Masculinity in Japan,is forthcoming with University of Michigan Press. He is currently conducting research on K-pop consumption amongst queer communities in Australia, Japan and the Philippines and writing a second book entitled Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fandom and Queer Popular Culture. He was awarded the 2016 Ian Nish Prize by the British Association of Japanese Studies. More information about Thomas’s research can be found at http://thomasbaudinette.wordpress.com.

Seminar 3 - 'Applying SFL-based Theme Analysis to Translation between English and Korean'

Dr Mira Kim (University of New South Wales)

Date: Wednesday 9^th September 2020, 3:30~5pm

Seminar 4 - 'Space, Ideology, and Cartographies of Language: Paths of Korean transnationalism in Singapore'

Dr Joseph Park (National University of Singapore)

Date: Tuesday 22^nd October 2020, 3:30~5pm

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series 2019 events

Seminar 1 - 'Multimodal dimensions of linguistic politeness in Korean and Japanese'

Dr Lucien Brown (Monash University)

Date: Wednesday 13^th March 2019, 1-2pm

Abstract

Korean and Japanese are known to have elaborate systems of honorifics that characterise the expression of politeness in these languages. In this talk, I will look at how honorific speech is also different to non-honorific speech in terms of acoustic and visual dimensions. When using honorific speech, speakers do not only use verbal honorifics, but also change the way that their speech sounds, the size and iconicity of the gestures that they use, and the way they coordinate their bodily movements with the interlocutor.

Bio

Lucien Brown is Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies at Monash University. An applied linguist by training, his research looks at how speakers of Korean use verbal language and other modalities to communicate social meanings, including politeness, sarcasm, and identity.

Seminar 2 - 'Transformation of Korean Business Groups (Chaebols): Economic and Socio-Political Implications'

Dr. Chinmay Pattnaik (The University of Sydney Business School)

Date: Thursday 28^th March 2019, 4-6pm

Abstract

Family controlled business groups (chaebols) dominate the corporate landscape of Korea. The concentration of economic activities in the hands of few chaebols has substantial influence on the socio-political and economic activities. While the concentration of chaebols leads to certain positive outcomes for Korean economy, it imposes costs beyond the economic and corporate sphere. Successive governments after the Asian economic crisis in 1997 have attempted to reform the structure and management of chaebols to restrict the negative impact. This presentation will provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of chaebols in Korean economy and society, the benefits and costs associated with chaebol structure and the transformation of chaebols in last two decades. By focusing on the transformation of the structure and management of chaebols, it will identify the future implications of such transformation for Korean economy and society.

Bio

Chinmay Pattnaik is the Deputy Head of Discipline and Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of International Business at the University of Sydney Business School. He is the reviewing editor of Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

Chinmay received his PhD in Business Administration from Seoul National University. His research focuses on the corporate and global strategies of firms from emerging market economies. He is interested in studying the determinants and consequences of corporate diversification and international strategies of firms in different institutional contexts including India, China and Korea. He critically evaluates and enriches existing theories by applying them to different institutional contexts. His research has been published by Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, Management International Review, Asia Pacific Journal of Management and Journal of Business Research among other leading management journals. His co-edited book ‘Emerging Market Firms in Global Economy’ is published by Emerald Publishing UK.

Chinmay was the representative-at-large for the Asia Academy of Management (AAoM) (2016-2017) and the nominated Chair of Paper Development Workshop (PDW) of the Academy of Management (AoM) 2018 conference for the AAoM division. He is on the Editorial Review Board of Journal of World Business and Asia Pacific Journal of Management.

Seminar 3 - 'Challenges of maintaining the mother’s language: Southeast Asian marriage-migrants and their mixed-heritage children in South Korea'

Dr. Mi Yung Park (The University of Auckland)

Date: Monday 15^th April 2019, 4-6pm

Abstract

This talk will examine the language use of Southeast Asian marriage-migrant mothers in rural South Korea with their mixed-heritage children, and the challenges related to heritage language (HL) transmission. Drawing on in-depth interviews with ten women, the study finds that they encountered multiple obstacles when attempting to teach the HL to their children due to conflicting language practices and ideologies within their three-generation families. The Korean family members regarded HL learning as a barrier to the children’s success and discouraged the development of their bilingual and bicultural identities. Moreover, the migrant women viewed themselves as incapable mothers when they felt they could not support their children academically. The mothers’ emphasis on the children’s academic and social success led them to promote Korean at home. Implications for HL education will be discussed.

Bio

Dr Mi Yung Park is Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies at the University of Auckland. Her research interests include heritage language maintenance, language and identity, and migration and multilingualism. She has published her work in such journals as International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Language and Education, Language and Intercultural Communication, Journal of Pragmatics, and Classroom Discourse.

Seminar 4 - 'Red Glamour: Korea’s Early Communist Women'

Assoc. Prof. Ruth Barraclough (ANU)

Date: Friday 17^th May 2019, 4-6pm

Abstract

In the 1920s some of Korea’s most famous communists were young women. Suppression and exile obliged them to be transnational and multi-lingual as they moved between colonial Korea, Manchuria, Japan, the United States and the Soviet Union. Products of both the sex-positive socialism of the early 1920s and a relatively self-governing leftist movement scattered throughout North East Asia, they became celebrities who turned exile into cruise travel and prison experience into sensational novels. With the founding of North Korea in 1948 many of them returned as cabinet ministers, political officers and leaders of state organisations. This talk traces the rise and fall of North Korea’s early communist women.

Bio

Associate Professor Ruth Barraclough teaches at the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. She researches contemporary Korean history, gender studies and literature, and is a translator of Korean literary fiction. Ruth’s second book Factory Girl Literature was translated into Korean in 2017 and spent 20 weeks on the history bestseller list, receiving numerous recommendations: nominated for the President's summer reading list by South Korea's leading book and newspaper editors and named one of the top ten books of 2017 by Kyunghyang Shinmun. Ruth has studied and worked in South Korea, Australia and the United States. Her new project is a book, co-authored with Professor Jiseung Roh, on North Korea’s glamorous early communist women. Ruth grew up in Queensland and first visited South Korea in the 1980s on a student exchange program.

Seminar 5 - 'Celebrities, Netizens and Nationalism in East Asia’

Dr Stephen Epstein (Victoria University of Wellington)

(In collaboration with Deakin University)

Date: Thursday 11^th July 2019, 2-3:30pm

Abstract

On August 14, 2016, Liberation Day in South Korea, American born Tiffany of K-pop icons Girls’ Generation uploaded a picture to her Instagram account that paid tribute to the group’s concert the previous night: applying a filter available in the social media platform, she added the locale “Tokyo, Japan” to caption the photo in a font style that recalled Japan’s rising sun flag. Netizen reaction was swift and harsh in condemning the “ignorant” action of the star, and her gaffe ultimately led to her dismissal from a popular Korean TV show. Tiffany, however, was far from the first star to be attacked for the display, almost always unwitting, of another nation’s symbols in East Asia’s highly sensitive internet environment. In this talk, Epstein will address such incidents in order to underline how nationalism intersects with the process of increasing mediatisation, personalisation and commodification of celebrity as well as media consumption, democratised fan production and evolving relations between fans and celebrities.

Seminar 6 - 'Emulating One’s Other: Tracing the Local and Foreign Origins of K-pop’

Assoc. Prof. Roald Maliangkay (Australian National University)

Date: Thursday 22^nd August 2019, 5-6:30 PM

Abstract

K-pop is often believed to derive from the boy band formation Seo Taiji and Boys, which arrived on the scene in the early 1990s. Borrowing heavily from American hip hop, it offered a unique blend of melodic tunes, short rap and synchronic dance sequences presented in a style that appeared to take inspiration from hip hop, rock and disco. The hugely successful trio transformed Korean mainstream music and fashion and impacted significantly on young Koreans’ sense of national pride. They also served as the blueprint for later K-pop idol and “talent” formations. It is nevertheless possible to find traces of the business model as far back as the 1950s, and even the 1930s. During these earlier decades, groups of Korean talents were also groomed to serve a wide range of audiences, with good looks and showmanship often taking precedency over musical skill. Expected to draw heavily on foreign examples, the performers managed to nurture their own unique performing skills using talent shows and auditions to land contracts with record companies and the media. What types of music and dance did the early Korean idol groups perform, and which celebrities were they expected to emulate? And what other aspects of the earlier music scenes may be associated with K-pop operations today?

Bio

Roald Maliangkay is Assoc. Professor in Korean studies at the Australian National University, where he analyses cultural industries and consumerism in Korea from the early twentieth century to the present. He is author of Broken Voices: Postcolonial Entanglements and the Preservation of Korea’s Central Folksong Traditions (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2017), and co-editor of K-pop: The International Rise of the Korean Music Industry (Routledge, 2015).

Seminar 7 - 'Webtoons Korean and Creative Innovation in a New Digital Economy'

Dr. Brian Yecies (University of Wollongong)

Date: Wednesday 11^th September 2019, 4-6pm

Abstract

Webtoons (aka digital comics) are now an integral part of the world’s expanding digital media industries. The major South Korean Internet and mobile broadband portal Naver has developed a domineering webtoon platform that is accessible across multiple markets and in multiple languages. This talk demonstrates how one of Naver’s most significant yet overlooked contributions to this thriving digital environment is the amateur user-translation infrastructure on Webtoon.com, which localizes content across 31 different languages. Seeking to explain how this transnational cultural practice is undergoing rapid transformation, the talk first examines how a coterie of volunteer translators are generating value for Naver and the webtoon industry more broadly through their innovative digital “transcreation” activities. The study focuses in detail on the cultural intermediaries across the globe who are relaying a variety of Korean webtoon genres for fans spread throughout the world. This case study demonstrates how developments in the webtoon industry are contributing symbiotically to the continued expansion of the Korean digital wave and the so-called platform economy in inconspicuous and uneven ways.

Bio

Brian Yecies is an Associate Professor in Communication and Media at the University of Wollongong, where he teaches and researches on film and digital media, creative industries and cultural policy, as well as Big Data and digital humanities research methods. His books include: Korea’s Occupied Cinemas, 1893-1948 (Routledge, 2011), The Changing Face of Korean Cinema, 1960-2015 (Routledge, 2016), and South Korea's Immersive Webtooniverse and the New Media Revolution (Rowman and Littlefield, forthcoming) – co-authored with Ae-Gyung Shim. Professor Michael Keane, Brian Yecies and Terry Flew have also published the edited book: Willing Collaborators: Foreign Partners in Chinese Media (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018). He is a chief investigator on two major Australian Research Council Discovery Projects: “Mobile Webtoons: Creative Innovation in a New Digital Economy” (2018-2020), and “Digital China: from cultural presence to innovative nation” (2017-2019). Brian’s peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters appear in numerous publications, including high-profile Chinese-language books such as Blue Book of Film: Development Report on Global Film Industry (2018, Beijing Film Academy); Reviews on the International Cultural Markets (2016, Beijing Capital University of Economics & Business); and Creative Media in China (2014, China Social Sciences Academic Press). Additionally, Dr. Yecies is a past Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellow in the communications and new media programme at the National University of Singapore, and Korea Foundation Research Fellow, as well as a recipient of grants from the Academy of Korean Studies, the Asia Research Fund, and the Australia–Korea Foundation.

Seminar 8 - 'Adapting to environmental shocks in North Korea: Networks, geography and resilience'

Dr Ben Habib (LaTrobe University)

Date: Wednesday 9^th October 2019, 1-2pm

Abstract

The geography of North Korea influences the degree to which different parts of the country are linked together with infrastructure networks.  If we divide the DPRK along a northwest-southeast axis between Kanggye and Hamhung, we see that the area south of this axis is more heavily networked with roads, rail and electricity connections, has greater concentrations of population, and has flatter geography.  The opposite is the case north of the axis.  This difference in the level of networked connections between the northeast and the southwest has implications for local-level adaptive capacity and resilience against environmental shock events.  This study explores some of the key political implications of this regional variation in adaptive capacities by overlaying key infrastructure networks with damage reports from DPRK state media related to typhoons that have tracked over or near the Korean Peninsula since 1995.

Bio

Dr. Ben Habib is a Lecturer in International Relations at La Trobe University. He is an internationally published scholar researching the relationships between grassroots sustainability projects, environmental movements and international climate politics, in addition to his long-standing research interest in North Korean security. Ben is a regular visitor to Korea and in 2017 led an environment and sustainability-themed student study tour to Seoul for La Trobe University undergraduate students.  Ben also teaches into the Permaculture Design Course at CERES Community Environment Park in Melbourne, focusing on the application of permaculture design principles to socio-economic systems.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series 2018 events

Seminar 1 - ‘Collecting power or compromise: K-pop fandom objectivised’ 

Dr Roald Maliangkay (ANU)

Date: Wednesday 14^th March 2018, 4–6pm

Abstract

Popular culture is commonly associated with national rather than individual soft power. And yet, the consumption patterns of individuals equally serve to attract the other. People are keenly aware of the socio-political significance of their consumption. They may not actively seek out the most significant purchase they could make, but they generally conform to a pattern of consumption that best reflects their aspirations, which social media allows them to advertise widely and instantly. Of course, not all consumption is a collection per se, but the compound selections people make serve to establish a trait. As Baudrillard put it, “it is invariably oneself that one collects”. K-pop, however, may be different. After all, little social credit may be earned from something that can be easily downloaded, and of which even limited editions are readily available, and relatively affordable. What is more, the average lifespan of a K-pop act is short and may quickly leave their collectors looking out of touch. What, then, drives so many K-pop fans to collect, and what characterizes their collections? In my talk I will discuss what may drive people towards collections and explain the unique place occupied by K-pop fandom.

Bio

Roald Maliangkay is Associate Professor in Korean studies at the Australian National University. Fascinated by the mechanics of cultural policy and the convergence of major cultural phenomena, Roald analyses cultural industries, performance and consumption in Korea from the early twentieth century to the present.

Seminar 2 - ‘Sanctions and Staying Power: North Korea in 2018’ 

Dr. Andray Abrahamian (Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies)

Date: Thursday 22^th March 2018, 4–6pm

Abstract

North Korea under Kim Jong Un is different to North Korea under Kim Jong Il. It is more marketized than every before, with less government ambivalence about entrepreneurship and commerce than in the past. It also appears to have taken denuclearization off the negotiating table and has pushed forward with its weapons programmes at an unprecedented rate. Because of this, it now faces the tightest sanctions regime in its history: over 90% of its legitimate export products are now banned. Will these sanctions force North Korea back to the negotiating table and create a path to denuclearization? What options does the Trump administration have and what new risks have emerged with a new presidency? This talk will provide a sketch of the current iteration of the North Korean nuclear issue, examining its impact on both domestic social and economic change, as well as North Korea’s international relations.

Bio

Dr. Andray Abrahamian is an Honorary Fellow at Macquarie University and a member of the U.S. National Committee on North Korea. He is also a Research Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), Affiliate Scholar at the East-West Center and an Adjunct Fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. He is a frequent media commentator on Korea issues, has lived in Myanmar and visited North Korea dozens of times.

Seminar 3 - ‘Myanmar and North Korea: Divergent Paths’ 

Dr. Andray Abrahamian (Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies)

Date: Friday 23^rd March 2018: 2-3.30pm

Abstract

The stories of North Korea and Myanmar (Burma) are two of Asia’s most difficult. For decades they were infamous as the region’s most militarized and repressed, self-isolated and under sanctions by the international community while, from Singapore to Japan, the rest of Asia saw historic wealth creation and growing middle class security. Andray Abrahamian, author of the recent book North Korea and Myanmar: Divergent Paths (McFarland, 2018), examines and compares the recent histories of North Korea and Myanmar, asking how both became pariahs and why Myanmar has been able to find a path out of isolation while North Korea has not. He finds that both countries were faced with severe security threats following decolonization. Myanmar was able to largely take care of its main threats in the 1990s and 2000s, allowing it the space to address the reasons for its pariah status. North Korea’s response to its security threat has been to develop nuclear weapons, which in turn perpetuates and exacerbates its isolation and pariah status. In addition, Pyongyang has developed a state ideology and a coercive apparatus unmatched by Myanmar, insulating its decision makers from political pressures and issues of legitimacy to a greater degree.

Seminar 4 - ‘Is the DPRK really a ‘Train Wreck in Slow Motion’? The Prospects for a People’s Power Rebellion in North Korea’ 

Dr Andy Jackson (Monash University Korean Studies)

Date: Wednesday 28^th March 2018, 1-2pm

Abstract

Predictions of the collapse of North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) have arisen repeatedly in the last thirty years. One scenario put forward by both researchers and journalists has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. Victor Cha, for example, argues that cases of unrest since the 1980s show that an ideological clash between official state policy and a rapidly marketizing society will result in an imminent rebellion. This paper uses theories about (1) regional occurrences of rebellion and (2) military defection from autocratic regimes to opposition movements. It analyses data about unrest (food riots, protests and violent clashes) taken from researchers, defector testimony and South Korean media reports since the 1980s and examines the military institutional structure of the DPRK. The available data indicates there is a highly uneven pattern of unrest that does not spread beyond remote coastal or border regions in the northeast and northwest. Reduced levels of violence during unrest suggest authorities have developed new strategies using counteractive methods targeted at individuals rather than opening fire on crowds. These new strategies may have helped hinder the spread of violence.The overall patterns of unrest do not point to the type of central state collapse that occurred in Romania in 1989 or Tunisia in 2011, but a regionally restricted and potentially bloody conflict. The DPRK lacks a dissident political elite capable of leading an opposition movement, and neither does it have the type of personalistic institutional ruling structure that increases the likelihood of military defection to an opposition movement. In sum, the likelihood of a popular rebellion in the DPRK is far from certain.

Seminar 5 - 'Creating an Anti-Communist Motion Picture Producers’ Network in Korea: The Asia Foundation and the Korean Motion Picture Cultural Association (KMPCA)’ 

Dr Sangjoon Lee (Nanyang Technological University)

Date: Wednesday 9^th May 2018, 2-2:30pm

Abstract

Under the leadership of its first president Robert Blum (1953-1962), The Asia Foundation, a private non-profit organization which was established in 1951, was actively involved in the motion picture industries in Asia since its first feature film project The People Win Through, based on a play written by a Burmese Prime Minister U Nu, came out in 1953. Roughly from 1953 to 1959, to win the battle for hearts and minds in Asia, The Asia Foundation had clandestinely supported anti-Communist motion picture industry personnel, ranging from producers, directors, and technicians to critics, writers, and general intellectuals in Japan, Hong Kong, Burma, Korea, as well as American and British producers in Malaya and Thailand in mostly indirect ways. Nagata Masaichi-initiated Federation of Motion Picture Producers in Southeast Asia (FPA) and its annual Southeast Asian Film Festival had been the Foundation’s core venture and other motion picture operations in Asia, Chang Kuo-sin’s Asia Pictures in Hong Kong and Korean Motion Picture Cultural Association (KMPCA) in Korea, were more or less related outcomes of FPA. What The Asia Foundation’s motion picture project team had hoped for was the construction of the league of anti-Communist motion picture producers in Asia in order to win the psychological war against Communism. Although It was, in the end, a failed project, but it should be noted that The Asia Foundation had played a significant role in the formation of the inter-Asian motion picture industry network in Cold War Asia, which had ultimately redrawn the imaginary and geo-political map of Asia. Drawing archival materials from Asia Foundation Records and Robert Blum Papers, this presentation is primarily concerned with the origins of the Foundation’s motion picture project in Japan and Korea, with a view to explore the ways in which the U.S. government-led cold war cultural policies had influenced the regional film industry.

Bio

Sangjoon Lee is Assistant Professor of Asian Cinema at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lee is the editor of Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media (University of Michigan Press, 2015) and is currently editing Rediscovering Korean Cinema for University of Michigan Press (forthcoming 2020). His writing has appeared in such journals as Film History, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Journal of Korean Studies, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, and Transnational Cinemas. He is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled The Asian Cinema Network: The Asian Film Festival and the Cultural Cold War in Asia.

Seminar 6 - 'The South Korean Film Industry'

Dr Sangjoon Lee (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

Date: Thursday 10^th May 2018, 4-6pm

Abstract

South Korean cinema has been one of the most striking case studies of non-western cinema success stories in the age of the neo-liberal world order where Hollywood dominates the world’s mind, heart, and soul. Under the tsunami of America-led Hollywoodization of the world’s media marketplace, South Korean cinema has successfully defended and keeps maintaining its industry remarkably healthy. In 2001 South Korea became the first film industry in recent history to reclaim its domestic market back from Hollywood. New York-based film magazine Film Comment proclaims that South Korean cinema is “one of the greatest renaissances in global filmmaking the world has ever seen” (2004). And in 2014 local films had a 62% market share in South Korea, the highest such figures in the world, except America and India. In less than two decades, South Korea’s film industry has blossomed from a small-scale curiosity into a vibrant business mimicking the earlier transformation of Hong Kong’s film industry in the process. Moreover, adding to this film industry success story, the high-quality South Korean local product flowed outward to global film markets to connect with international audiences in commercial cinemas, art theatres, at major international film festivals, and new platforms like Netflix and iTunes. Such acclaimed directors like Chan-wook Park, Bong Joon-ho, Hong Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong, and Kim Jiwoon have now become household names in world cinema today. The goal of this introductory lecture on the Korean film industry is to develop a broad understanding of Korean cinema exploring their wide-ranging impact and asking how they participate in the transnational production and circulation of culture, ideology, modernity, politics, and tradition in both regional and international contexts.

Bio

Sangjoon Lee is Assistant Professor of Asian Cinema at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Lee is the editor of Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media (University of Michigan Press, 2015) and is currently editing Rediscovering Korean Cinema for University of Michigan Press (forthcoming 2020). His writing has appeared in such journals as Film History, Historical Journal of Film, Radio, and Television, Journal of Korean Studies, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, and Transnational Cinemas. He is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled The Asian Cinema Network: The Asian Film Festival and the Cultural Cold War in Asia.

Seminar 7 - 'The Civilian Side of Denuclearization: Energy Policy on the Korean Peninsula Seminar'

Dr Heike Hermanns (Gyeongsang National University)

Date: Thursday 26^th July 2018

Abstract

The denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is the topic of negotiations between North Korea, South Korean and the United States, with a focus on nuclear weapons. The non-military use of nuclear technology gathers far less attention. South Korea has long expanded the number of nuclear power plants which currently contribute about one third of the energy needs but in 2017, newly-elected President Moon Jae-in announced the phasing out of nuclear power and an expansion of renewable energy. The presentation explores the development of nuclear energy in South Korea, the resistance against nuclear power plants and the background to the recent policy change. The presentation also briefly covers nuclear power in North Korea and the potential of inter-Korean cooperation in energy matters.

Bio

Heike Hermanns is Associate Professor in Political Science at Gyeongsang National University in Jinju, South Korea. Her main research area is South Korean politics, in particular issues related to the development of democracy in the country. Currently, her special focus is on environmental policies and the role of civil society in the policy-making process, lining up with a personal interest in environmental protection. Professor Hermanns has studied in Germany and the UK, and held university research positions in the UK and Australia prior to coming to South Korea in 2007. She has published widely in Korea and internationally, including in the Pacific Focus, Asian Women, and Asian Policy and Politics.

The Melbourne Metropolitan Korean Studies Seminar Series 2017 events

Seminar 1 - “Hardworking Women: Embodying the Nation in a Jeju Dive Fishery”

Josephine Wright (Independent Scholar)

Date: Friday 15^th September 2017 

Abstract

A talk with maps and images. This informal talk shows how gender roles have changed with the introduction of mass media, with this exposure to national representations of gender intensifying a local self-consciousness that Jeju men and women played different roles to mainland people. While young Jeju people in the year 2000 identified with mainland South Korean gendered identities, they also proudly reproduced Jeju nationalist narratives about the singularity of Jeju women’s physical and emotional strength, their loud voices, diving and farming skills and muscular builds, and the kindness and gentle faces of their scholarly, sedentary Jeju men. These nostalgic representations of a differently gendered Jeju past were both intensely felt by locals and reproduced for tourism and South Korean television shows like “Our Hometown”, important media for a nationalism wherein Jeju people continue to occupy a place as an Other within- both included in and excluded from the national imaginary.

Bio

Josephine Wright undertook twelve months’ ethnographic Fieldwork with Jeju people in South Korea in 2000 and 2001. She acknowledges the generosity and support of the Department of Anthropology in the College of Asia and the Pacific (then RSPAS) at the  ANU, Australian Postgraduate Award, Korea Foundation, NIIED, and Pusan, Cheju and Monash Universities.

Seminar 2 - “20 Year’s Evolution of North Korean Migration”

Dr Jiyoung (Jay) Song (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne)

Date: Thursday 5^th October 2017

Abstract

Over the past two decades, there have been notable changes in North Korean migration: from forced migration to trafficking in women, from heroic underground railways to people smuggling by Christian missionaries. The migration has taken mixed forms of asylum seeking, human trafficking, undocumented labour migration and people smuggling. The author follows the footsteps of North Korean migrants from China through Southeast Asia to South Korea, and from there to the United Kingdom, to see the dynamic correlation between human (in)security and irregular migration. She analyses how individual migrant’s agency interacts with other key actors in the migration system and eventually brings about emerging patterns of four distinc- tive forms of irregular migration in a macro level. It uses human security as its conceptual framework that is a people-centred, rather than state- or national security-centric approach to irregular migration.

Bio

Dr Jiyoung (Jay) Song is a Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies at the Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne. She is also a Global Ethics Fellow of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York. Prior to the current positions, Jay was a Director of Migration at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute and Assistant Professor in Political Science at the Singapore Management University.

Seminar 3 - “Fish, Forests and Fungus: Vibrant matter(s) in the Environmental and Political Histories of North Korea” 

Dr Robert Winstanley-Chesters (Australian National University, Canberra)

Date: Wednesday 18^th October 2017

Abstract

From Pyongyang’s urban landscape to sacred political architectures of Mt Paektu, North Korea’s topographies are harnessed in support of its politics. While the nation’s coastlines, mountains and forests are by their nature more liminal and diffuse than its monolithic urban/political terrains, North Korean natures and wildernesses have long served its politico-developmental narratives, forging new ‘socialist’ landscapes and geo-political connections. These terrains are also almost entirely human in focus with little consideration given to a wider ‘web of life.’ Even though the narratives which co-produce the terrain of North Korea’s politics make enormous use of topography and environmental features, they do not for the most part include non-human or non-sentient residents or participants on/on the peninsula.

In this presentation Robert Winstanley-Chesters considers North Korean physical and cultural topography as an assemblage of actors and participants, from what has been termed a ‘more than human perspective.’ With what Jane Bennett has termed ‘vibrant’ or ‘lively’ matter in mind he reviews North Korea’s environmental history and its intersection with the politics and ideology of Pyongyang. In particular Robert addresses the role of forests and timber resources in the formation of North Korean nationalism following the Japanese colonial period and the entwining of fungus and mycorrhizal matters with Pyongyang’s diplomatic efforts in the 1990s and early 2000s. Finally Robert considers fish and fishing infrastructure in North Korea, specifically focusing on communities on Sindo Island at the mouth of the Amnok/Yalu River. In conventional, common discourse North Korea’s relationship with environmental and natural resources has, since the early 1990s become fractious and difficult, beset and characterised by lack, degradation and denudation. However an alternative reading might indicate that in these absences and declines North Korea’s environment has become ‘lively’, ‘vibrant’ and active in the present. Robert within this presentation suggests that such a reading might indeed contribute to a deeper sense of how North Korea citizens, both human and non-human engaged in developmental and environmental processes, conceive of and negotiate their places at geo-political, regional and local scales, (re)constructing new forms of ‘informal life politics’ and ‘vibrant matter’ in a North Korea of transitions.

Bio

Robert Winstanley-Chesters is a geographer and Research Fellow at Australian National University. Previously Robert was a Post-Doctoral Fellow of Cambridge University (Beyond the Korean War). Robert obtained his doctorate from the University of Leeds with a thesis later published as “Environment, Politics and Ideology in North Korea: Landscape as Political Project” in 2014 by Lexington. Robert was also a co-editor of the edited volume “Change and Continuity in North Korean Politics” (Routledge) in 2016. Robert’s second monograph “New Goddesses of Mt Paektu: Gender, Violence, Myth and Transformation in Korean Landscapes” will be published in summer 2017/2018 by Lexington. Robert is co-author of the forthcoming monograph “Transformation of Korean Mountain Culture” which will be published in December 2018 by Lexington and is working on a third monograph entitled “Vibrant matter(s), Fish, Fishing, Conservation and Community in North Korea and its neighbours” for publication by Springer in summer 2019. Robert has also published in academic journals such as S/N Korean Humanities, Capitalism Nature Socialism, Asian Perspective and North Korean Review. Robert is currently researching leisure geographies, fishing and animal/creaturely geographies in North Korea and the colonial mineralogical and forest inheritances of the Korean peninsula.