Humanities Department (CSCC) and East Asian Studies Center (Ohio State) present:
When East Meets West Symposium
No Peace, No Unity: The 'End' of the Korean War and Its Legacy, 1953-2023
David Fields, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Both Over and not Over: The Legacy of the Korean War in the United States, US-Korean Relations, and Northeast Asia
Benjamin Young, Virginia Commonwealth University
"Renegades of Socialism": What North Korea Learned from the Collapse of the Soviet Union
Moderator: Mitchell Lerner, The Ohio State University
Both Over and not Over: The Legacy of the Korean War in the United States, US-Korean Relations, and Northeast Asia
The temporary armistice signed in July 1953 between the Chinese, North Korean, and UN forces has proved durable beyond expectations. The last seventy years on the Korean peninsula have not been entirely peaceful, but the extreme violence of the 1950-53 period has never resumed. However, the fundamental issue that caused the war has not been resolved; the Korean peninsula remains divided between two competing states, both of which deny the legitimacy of the other and claim unification as a policy goal. This unresolved issue has prevented any sort of peace treaty from officially ending the conflict, leaving the two Koreas, the United States, and to a lesser extent the countries of the region embodied in an unending conflict. This talk will explore the legacies of the unending Korean War for US-Korea relations, for northeast Asia, and for American society.
"Renegades of Socialism": What North Korea Learned from the Collapse of the Soviet Union
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in1991, many analysts and pundits predicted that the Kim family regime in North Korea would soon collapse. However, the regime has managed to persist longer than the Soviet Union ever existed. This presentation will explore the seemingly implausible resilience of the Kim family regime and investigate what lessons Pyongyang learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European satellites, which the regime deemed "renegades of socialism." Primary focus will be on how North Korea reshaped its ideology, military, and institutions to resist the forces of global capitalism and U.S hegemony in the post-Cold War world.
If you require an accommodation, such as live captioning, to participate in this event, please contact Janet Smith at smith.12674@osu.edu or 614-292-3345. Requests made at least two weeks in advance of the event will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the university will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.
