The Institute for Korean Studies presents:
"Reading Seoul in Pyongyang: Rethinking Cross-Border Media Flows in 1950s-1960s Korea"
Jonathan Kief
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Abstract: This talk offers a new perspective on the relationship between texts in early Cold War North and South Korea. Although it is generally assumed that the division of the peninsula in 1945 and the subsequent establishment of separate states produced two mediascapes that developed in increasing isolation from each other, a careful reading of sources demonstrates otherwise. Drawing upon texts from the literary, cultural, and journalistic domains, this talk outlines the surprisingly robust reception that South Korean publications received in North Korea in the 1950s and 1960s. It then explores the variety of responses that they engendered: republication by North Korean journals and newspapers, creative adaptation by North Korean writers, and fabrication by North Korean editors. The talk thus emphasizes the novel modes of interaction – rather than simple rejection – that the Cold War conflict produced in Korea.
Jonathan Kief is a scholar of modern Korean and comparative literature whose research links Cold War-era cultural production in North Korea, South Korea, and the Korean diaspora in Japan. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Korean Studies in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches courses in Korean literature, film, and popular culture as well as transnational Asian Studies.
