From the publisher’s website: This book explores the evolution of social movements in South Korea by focusing on how they have become institutionalized and diffused in the democratic period. The contributors explore the transformation of Korean social movements from the democracy campaigns of the 1970s and 1980s to the rise of civil society struggles after … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 75)
Diamond Mountains: Travel and Nostalgia in Korean Art
From the publisher’s website: A dazzling exploration of the pictorial traditions inspired by Korea’s legendary Diamond Mountains The Diamond Mountains, known in Korea as Mount Geumgang, are perhaps the most famous and emotionally resonant site on the Korean Peninsula, a breathtaking range of rocky peaks, waterfalls, lagoons, and manmade pavilions. For centuries the range has … [Read More]
Spirituality in Contemporary Art: The Idea of the Numinous
An important contribution to an emerging debate about the use and misuse of spirituality in contemporary aesthetics. Jungu Yoon opens up the discourse between Eastern and Western art and introduces the reader to a discussion of the impact of digital culture on aesthetics. Important reading for artists, practitioners and theorists alike, it also opens up … [Read More]
Arts of Korea: Histories, Challenges, and Perspectives
From the publisher’s website: A monumental addition to the understudied field of Korean art, this brilliantly illustrated volume assembles the perspectives of art historians, critics, curators, and museum directors from major universities and museums around the world to trace the varied and dynamic experiences of Korean art acquisitions over the past century. The first part … [Read More]
City as Art: 100 Notable Works of Architecture in Seoul
The city of Seoul boasts a long history as a prized territory on the peninsula since the Three Kingdoms period (57 BCE-AD 688) and as the national capital for over 600 years of Joseon Dynasty (1392-1897). History is bound to leave behind architecture, and Seoul is home to myriad buildings, from those constructed in ancient … [Read More]
Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop
From the publisher’s website: K-pop (Korean popular music) reigns as one of the most popular music genres in the world today, a phenomenon that appeals to listeners of all ages and nationalities. In Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop, Crystal S. Anderson examines the most important and often overlooked aspect of K-pop: the … [Read More]
Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music
From the publisher’s website: Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music serves as a comprehensive and thorough introduction to the history, sociology, and musicology of contemporary Korean popular music. Each essay covers the major figures, styles, and social contexts of pop music in Korea, first presenting a general description of the history and background of popular music … [Read More]
K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea
From the publisher’s website: K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea seeks at once to describe and explain the emergence of export-oriented South Korean popular music and to make sense of larger South Korean economic and cultural transformations. John Lie provides not only a history of South Korean popular music—the premodern background, … [Read More]
South Korean Popular Culture and North Korea
From the publisher’s website: Over recent decades South Korea’s vibrant and distinctive populist culture has spread extensively throughout the world. This book explores how this “Korean wave” has also made an impact in North Korea. The book reveals that although South Korean media have to be consumed underground and unofficially in North Korea, they are widely watched … [Read More]
The Invitation-Only Zone: The Extraordinary Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project
During the 1970s and early 80s, dozens – perhaps hundreds – of Japanese civilians were kidnapped by North Korean commandos and forced to live in ‘Invitation Only Zones’, high-security detention-centres masked as exclusive areas, on the outskirts of Pyongyang. The objective? To brainwash the abductees with the regime’s ideology, and train them to spy on … [Read More]
North Korea Undercover
From the publisher’s website: North Korea is like no other tyranny on earth. It is Orwell’s 1984 made reality. The regime controls the flow of information to its citizens, pouring relentless propaganda through omnipresent loud speakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line and the gulag awaits. State spies are everywhere, ready … [Read More]
North Korea Journal
From the publisher’s website: A glimpse of life inside the world’s most secretive country, as told by Britain’s best-loved travel writer. In May 2018, former Monty Python stalwart and intrepid globetrotter Michael Palin spent two weeks in the notoriously secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a cut-off land without internet or phone signal, where the … [Read More]
Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea
From the publisher’s website: Coverage of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) all too often focuses solely on nuclear proliferation, military parades, and the personality cult around its leaders. As the British ambassador to North Korea, John Everard had the rare experience of living there from 2006, when the DPRK conducted its first nuclear … [Read More]
Without You, there is no Us
From the publisher’s website: It is 2011, and all universities in North Korea have been shut down for an entire year, except for the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. This is where Suki Kim has accepted a job teaching English. Over the next six months she will eat three meals a day with … [Read More]
A Thousand Miles to Freedom: My Escape From North Korea
From the publisher’s website: Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child Eunsun loved her country…despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the country-wide famine escalated. By the time she … [Read More]
Ask A North Korean: Defectors Talk About Their Lives Inside the World’s Most Secretive Nation
From the publisher’s website: “In his new book, Ask a North Korean, Daniel Tudor—a former Economist journalist and current Korean beer entrepreneur— wants people to understand the true lives of everyday North Koreans. Using translated essays written by defectors, the book covers topics from politics to pornography.” — The Boston Globe The weekly column Ask A North Korean, published by NK News, invites readers … [Read More]