Winter 2016
Professor Sorensen
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Email: sangok@u.washington.edu
In this course we will take and intensive and critical look at the literature on North Korea society with an eye to answering the question
“what kind of society is North Korea?” and
“What is life like for the North Korean people?”
We will also deal with DPRK foreign policy issues, nuclear proliferation, and so forth, but these will not be central foci of the course.
Historically there have been a number of answers proposed to the question of what kind of society North Korea is—
- Soviet puppet state,
- independent revolutionary communist society,
- totalitarian state,
- “Kim family dictatorship”,
- rogue state,
and so forth—
and this is only a sample of the labels that have been used in the US. The North and South Koreans, not to mention
- the other former socialist states, and
- countries of the non-aligned movement such as India have yet other ways of describing North Korea.
In addition, we need to take seriously the notion that North Korea may have gone through several different types of society during its 65 years of existence.
I have tried this year to concentrate on the most recent high-quality publications on North Korea. In the first half of the course we will be going through North Korean history emphasizing the institutional and other changes that have occurred despite continued Kim family leadership.
In the second half of the course we will take a more detailed look at North Korean current institutions in order to understand how they function, and to consider whether the North Korean state can continue to function in the future.
I have translated some first-person accounts of life in North Korea, and we will view a couple of North Korean films in order to get a feel for what life is like there. The last two weeks of the course will consider what crossings of the DMZ between North and South Korea reveals about how the two sides understand each other.
Course Objectives:
a) To describe the historical development of North Korean institutions,
b) To introduce intellectual concepts students can use to understand how North Korean authorities obtain compliance in the North Korean population,
c) To demonstrate the internal and external reasons for the North Korean famine of the 1990s, and
d) To provide up-to-date information on current developments in North Korean society.
By the end of the course, students will have the ability to critically evaluate news reports and policy initiatives regarding North Korea, and to make informed judgments about the future viability of an independent North Korea.
North Korean issues are always controversial, so it is appropriate that we have ample time to discuss them. Of our two-hour lecture sessions the second hour of each Thursday lecture will normally be devoted to discussion of the readings for that week. Students should attend these discussions and be prepared to answer the study questions for each day listed in the syllabus or distributed by other means. I will be calling on students from the roll rather than relying on volunteer, and will note student’s ability to respond. Group study with your friends can be a very effective technique to prepare for class discussion.
The following books have been ordered for you and will be available at the University Bookstore. Notice that all the textbooks are also available as Kindle editions. I have put the books on reserve at the East Asia library as well. Gause is available as a free electronic download, and I have put one printed out and bound issue on reserve at the East Asia library.
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(1) Charles Armstrong, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2013)
Starting in 1950 as the Korean War breaks out, Armstrong shows how internal developments within North Korean society interacted with, or sometimes reacted to, international events. Using many newly available Eastern European documents he outlines how North Korea reached out to other socialist countries and the non-aligned movement while keeping a strictly defense-oriented policy at home that has consistently hindered economic development.
(2) Lankov, Andrei, The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia. (New York: Oxford, 2013).
A contrasting view to that of Armstrong by a Russian author who studied in P’yŏngyang and has since made his way in South Korea. While Lankov begins by covering historical territory also covered by Armstrong in the largest part of the book he emphasizes the period after 1992, bringing the story up to 2012 2012 after Kim Jong-un had became the third North Korean leader.
(3) Sandra Fahy, Marching through Suffering: Loss and Survival in North Korea. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015)
Based on interviews with survivors of the North Korean famine currently living in Tokyo and Seoul, the anthropologist Fahy focuses on the details of language—how people were able to talk about the famine (or not), and how limitations on talk and information affected how people perceived and reacted to the famine. Gives one insight on how North Korean residents thought about and negotiated their lives.
(4) Ken Gause, North Korean House of Cards: Leadership Dynamics under Kim Jong-un, (Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, 2015).
In contrast to Armstrong and Lankov. historians who base their works on documents, Gause is a Kremlinologist who analyzes leadership and power relations as related to policy choice, basing his analysis on close readings of North Korean sources and on interviews with defectors. This is one of the best works trying to analyze the internal politics of the Kim Jongun regime (2011-2015), though the details can be daunting. This is available as a free download from the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea at https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/HRNK_Gause_NKHOC_FINAL.pdf
(5) Kim Suk-young, DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship along the Korean Border. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014)
Kim, a scholar of dramatic arts who has written on North Korean drama, here considers people (both fictional and real) who have crossed from south to north and north to south, analyzing how they live their emotional (as opposed to legal) citizenship. This unusual work that discusses film, museum exhibition, and theater productions, among other things, give insight into the continuing meaning of division for people on both sides of the DMZ that divides them.
There will be additional short readings notated in the syllabus below that will be available on the course wesite.
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As this course has both an undergraduate (JSISA 484E) and graduate (JSISA 584D) section, you will notice that there are some differences in the requirements for undergraduates and graduates. The lectures and discussion will be the same for both sections.
However, the graduate students will have extra readings labeled “Graduate Readings” that the undergraduates will not be responsible for. Graduates should be prepared to answer questions on all the readings while undergraduates need only master the basic readings. Both graduates and undergraduates will be responsible for a research paper due March 4th in the penultimate week of class, but the undergraduate paper will be 5-7 pages, and the graduate paper 10-15. Graduates will be expected to dig more deeply into primary sources than undergraduates.
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Grading;
For Undergraduates the grades will be based on an in-class essay midterm, an in-class essay final, six weekly response papers, and a research paper. The midterm, final, and research paper will be weighted 30% each, with the response papers totaling 10%.
For Graduate Students the midterm and final will be weighted 30% each, and the paper 40%. Graduate students will not be responsible for weekly response papers.
The required books will also be available on reserve in the East Asia library. Reading outside the main textbooks listed above (whether for graduates or undergraduates) will be available at the course web site http://faculty.washington.edu/sangok/NorthKorea. The films will be on reserve in OUGL media center.
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There will be a Midterm on Tuesday February 2nd, and an in-class Final on Wednesday, March 16 4:30-6:20 in SIG 226.
Some interesting websites on North Korea for those interested in current events are the following:
The Nautlius Institute for Security and Development in Berkeley, CA has good information on NK energy and nuclear issues: http://www.nautilus.org
The North Korea Zone is an interesting blog with lots of current information:
http://www.nkzone.org/nkzone/
For those of you with good Korean, Chosun Ilbo (conservative) has a website devoted to news on North Korea: http://www.nkchosun.com/Main/Main.html
The US Committee for Human Rights in North Korea is the group behind the North Korean Human Rights Act passed in Congress in 2005: http://www.hrnk.org/
P’yongyang Square has lots of recent travel accounts posted by mostly Europeans and Australians:
http://www.pyongyangsquare.com/resources/
Chosun Journal is a Christian oriented web site on North Korea:
http://chosunjournal.com/index.php
Daily North Korea is a conservative site on North Korean news:
http://www.dailynk.com/english/
People’s Korea is a pro-North Korea newspaper published in Japan:http://www.koreanp.co.jp/pk/
International Crisis Group is an organization that issues periodic and interesting reports on North Korea: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=2956&l=1
South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade gives current South Korean policy statements and other Information about North Korea:
http://www.mofat.go.kr/index.html
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Syllabus
Week I: The Establishment of North Korea
- The Establishment of the DPRK
- War and Collectivization
Reading:
Lankov, Introduction and pp 3-11
Hwang Chang-yŏp (1999) I Witnessed History’s Truth. Hanul, Seoul. “Chapter 2: In a Liberated Fatherland.” (on course website)
Armstrong, Introduction and chapters 1 & 2
Kim Sŏng-ch’il, “July 26, 1950” from Yŏksa ap esŏ: han sahakcha ŭi 6.25 ilgi [Before History: A Historian’s Korean War Diary] (on course website).
Ch’oe Ŭnhŭi, “Chapter 4: An Actress’s Sad War” In Glennys Young, ed. The Communist Experience in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press: 2012) pp270-77.
Graduate Reading
Bruce Cumings (1981) The Origins of the Korean War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes 1945-47. Princeton University Press. Chap 11
“The North Wind”
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Week II: Heyday of the Father and Rise of the Son
- Building a Monolithic State
- The Eighties and the Rise of Kim Jong Il
Reading:
Armstrong, Introduction, chaps 3-5
Brian Myers (2006) “The Watershed that Wasn’t: Re-evaluating Kim Il Sung’s
“Juche Speech” of 1955” Acta Koreana Vol. 9 No. 1 (on course website)
Takahashi Sakai (1996) “The Power Base of Kim Jong Il: Focusing on Its Formation Process,” In Han S. Park, ed. North Korea: Ideology, Politics, Economy. Prentice-Hall. Pp 105-122.
Graduate Reading:
Kim Il Sung (1965) “Socialist Construction.” In Revolution and Socialist Construction in Korea: Selected Writings of Kim Il Sung (New York: International
Publishers, 1971). This is a selection from the so-called “April Theses.”
Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig (2000) “The Power and Poverty of Ideology” In
Oh and Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass. Brookings Institution
Press pp 12-40 (especially 12-21)
Week III: The Son Takes Command
- the Non-aligned Movement and the 1972 Constitution
- Kim Jong Il Takes Command
Reading:
Armstrong, chapters 6-7
Lankov, chapters 2-3
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Week IV: DPRK and the Collapse of the Soviet Block
- Collapse of the Soviet Block & South Korean Nordpolitik
- North Korea’s Nuclear Program
Reading:
Lankov, chaps 5 & 6
Siegfried Hecker, “Lessons learned from the North Korean Nuclear Crisis,” Daedalus 139 (Winter 2010)
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Week V: The North Korean Famine
In-Class Midterm
Causes of the North Korean Famine
Reading:
Chong-Ae Yu, “The Rise and Demise of Industrial Agriculture in North Korea,” Journal of Korean Studies, Vol. 12 No. 1 pp75-109.
Fahy, “Appendix: A Short History of the North Korean Famine” Pp183-201.
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Week VI: The Subjectivity of Famine in North Korea
- Social Cohesion, and What Can be Named
- Life and Disillusion
Reading:
Fahy, chaps 4-6, and Conclusion Graduate Reading:
Andrei Lankov, In-ok Kwak, and Choong-Bin Cho, “The Organizational Life: Daily Surveillance and Daily Resistance in North Korea,” Journal of East Asian Studies 12 (2012) pp 193-214
Cheehyung Kim, “Total, Thus Broken: Chuch’e Sasang and North Korea’s Terrain of Subjectivity,” Journal of Korean Studies Vol 17, No 1 pp 69-96.
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Week VII: The Third Succession
The Selection and Succession of Kim Jongun
The Purges
Reading:
Lankov, chapter 4
Gause, House of Cards, Section One: pp 20-99
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Week VIII: The Apparatus of Kim Jong-un’s Power
- The Kim Family Apparatus
- Internal Security Apparatus
Reading:
Gause, House of Cards Section Two: Kim Jong-un’s Apparatus of Power pp
119-279
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Week IX: Crossing the DMZ
- Border Crossing and National Identity
- Movie: The Fates of Geumhui and Eunhui (1975)
Reading:
Suk-Young Kim, DMZ Crossing, Introduction, chaps 1-3
Youngmin Choe, “Postmemory DMZ in South Korean Cinema, 1999-2003,” Journal of Korean Studies 18(2): 315-36.
Suzy Kim, “Mothers and Maidens: Gendered Formation of Revolutionary Heroes in North Korea,” Journal of Korean Studies 19(2): 257-89.
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Paper due in my mailbox Friday, March 4th, 5:00 PM.
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Week X: Museums and Borderlands
- The Case of Lim Su-kyung
- Museums and Borderlands
Reading:
Suk-Young Kim, chaps 4 and 5
Sandra Fahy, “Family, Mobile Phones, and Money: Contemporary Practices of Unification on the Korean Peninsula,” In Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies Vol. 26 (2015), Korea Economic Institute pp81-96
Kim Jiyoon, “Ethnic Brothers or Migrants: North Korean Defectors in South Korea,” In Joint U.S.-Korea Academic Studies Vol. 26 (2015), Korea Economic Institute pp 97-112.
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Final Exam: March 16th, 4:30-6:20 SIG 226
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