North Korea Archives - Public Seminar

Sports

Feminism, Sports, and Football in North Korea

Women’s football is one of the very few areas in which North Korea can display excellence to international audiences

February 3, 2026 • by Jung Woo Lee

While North Korea's political doctrine displays a revisionist character that combines nationalism with communism, traditional socialist feminism still influences its gender policy. The key tenet of socialist feminism includes the emancipation of women from economic dependency on their male counterparts and their liberation from confinement to household duties (Mojab 2015). ...

Feminism, Sports, and Football in North Korea

Politics

How Donald Trump Facilitated the Current Racist Attacks on Asian Americans

The long history of America’s hostility toward immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

March 18, 2021 • by Nadia Y. Kim

_____ EDITORS NOTE: Last summer, in the midst of the Black Lives Matter uprisings around the country, Public Seminar published a prescient piece by Nadia Kim, a professor of sociology and the author of several books, including Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA, and Refusing Death: Immigrant Women ...

How Donald Trump Facilitated the Current Racist Attacks on Asian Americans

Race

Asian Americans Suffer From Trump’s Racist Attacks Too

The long history of America’s hostility toward immigrants from China, Japan, and Korea

July 23, 2020 • by Nadia Y. Kim

We are all familiar with the racist tactics that vaulted Donald Trump into the Oval Office. He demonized Mexicans, he denounced Muslims, and he cozied up on Twitter to ardent White supremacists. In recent weeks, he’s relentlessly attacked the Black Lives Matter protests. Amid all the vitriol, it’s easy to overlook ...

Asian Americans Suffer From Trump’s Racist Attacks Too

Feature

Stepping Outside the Echo Chamber

The importance of engaging with differing perspectives in the Age of Trump

July 12, 2018 • by Martin O. Heisler

Like so many others, I have been frustrated by my inability to find the language and style of discourse for engaging Trump supporters in reasoned discussion about their choice and their reactions to his pronouncements, executive orders and consequential tweets. Attempting to engage in such conversations invariably led to confrontation ...

Feature

Sabotaging the “Summit”

Trump and the North Korean Summit Meeting

June 4, 2018 • by John Lawrence

It is not unreasonable to ask whether Donald Trump and his hapless band of congressional allies are purposefully sabotaging the operations of the United States government, or are simply so incompetent that they cannot help stumbling into both dysfunction and ridicule by sheer misfortune. In all likelihood, it is a ...

Feature

Who Is Allowed to Speak For North Koreans?

Narratives of Captivity and Freedom

March 21, 2018 • by Reid Mitchell

The Southern Slavocracy’s obsession with people escaping slavery helped create anti-slavery feeling in the rest of the United States. The Slavocracy viewed these escapes as threats to the viability of the South’s Peculiar Institution. But until the Civil War, very few of the black people held in slavery did escape. ...

Who Is Allowed to Speak For North Koreans?

Feature

North and South Korea Unite Under a Single Flag for Games

Can the Olympics bring about peace of the Korean peninsula?

February 8, 2018 • by Rachael Miyung Joo

On January 17, 2018, just three weeks before the start of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, North Korea and South Korea announced that the North would participate in this year’s Olympics. The two states will enter the opening ceremonies together under the Korea Unification flag, engage in joint training sessions, and ...

North and South Korea Unite Under a Single Flag for Games

Feature

Trump, Nukes, and Democracy at its Limit

The whole world is watching

August 9, 2017 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

In the history of political thought there have been many rationales offered for democracy as an ideal of self-government, just as there have been many criticisms of the very idea of democracy. One of the most cogent rationales is the simple idea that regular democratic elections make political power accountable, because ...

Trump, Nukes, and Democracy at its Limit

Feature

The Captivity of Otto Warmbier

Outsiders, Insiders, and Mad Kings

June 15, 2017 • by Ann M. Little

I’ve followed Warmbier’s story as closely as I can -- as closely as any of us can at this remove from the DPRK’s closed society, one dominated by an autocratic regime that is itself ruled by the whims of a mad king. At the same time, I have thought about ...

Multi Media

Fyre Festival, the 1992 LA Uprisings, and North Korea

Past Present: Episode 82

May 11, 2017 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Neil J. Young and Nicole Hemmer

In this week's episode, Niki, Natalia, and Neil discuss the causes of the Fyre Festival fiasco, the anniversary of the LA uprisings, and the history of US-North Korea relations.

...

Fyre Festival, the 1992 LA Uprisings, and North Korea

Uncategorized

Pizzas for the People

Directed by Hwang Kim and produced by Festival Bo:m

October 31, 2014 • by Hwang Kim

In the course of a long running ideological conflict North Korea is one of the most culturally isolated countries in the world, which rejects any foreign influences through a tight control of media and communication equipment. To protect the North Korean identity from potential damaging western influences, short wave radios, ...