April 27, 2023 - Join us for a discussion that aims to cultivate fresh ideas on America’s policy toward North Korea and coordination with ally South Korea by mobilizing a nuanced understanding of past lessons. The discussion includes consideration of developments to the approach addressed in the summit meeting between US President Joe Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. The program features Professor Jeong-Ho Roh, Director of the Center for Korean Legal Studies, Jenny Town, Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center and the Director of Stimson's 38 North Program, and Keith Luse, Executive Director of the National Committee on North Korea (NCNK), in conversation with policy director Jonathan Corrado. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/item/1669-north-korea-lessons-learned-and-creative-thinking

April 13, 2023 - An instant bestseller in Korea and the follow up to the international bestseller, Please Look After Mom, I Went to See My Father by Kyung-Sook Shin centers on a woman’s efforts to reconnect with her aging father, uncovering long-held family secrets. More than just the portrait of a single man, I Went to See My Father opens a window onto humankind, family, loss, and war. With this long-awaited follow-up to Please Look After Mom—flawlessly rendered by award-winning translator Anton Hur—Kyung-Sook Shin has crafted an ambitious, global, epic, and lasting novel. In a rare personal appearance in the U.S., Kyung-Sook Shin will be joined by Jenny Wang Medina to discuss her latest novel. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/item/1666-kyung-sook-shin-with-jenny-wang-medina

April 13, 2023 - Join us for a discussion about North Korea’s cyber threat, with Jean Lee, co-host of the BBC’s Lazarus Heist podcast and public policy fellow with the Wilson Center, and cybersecurity expert Michael Barnhart, who is currently with the threat intelligence firm Mandiant and was formerly Cyber Team Lead at the US Senate and signals intelligence collector in the intelligence community. The discussion is moderated by policy director Jonathan Corrado. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/item/1662-the-north-korean-cyber-threat

April 11, 2023 - A novel about a woman tossed overboard by heartbreak and loss, who has to find her way back to stable shores with the help of a giant Pacific octopus. Sea Change is an "absolutely stunning debut" novel —Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face—by Gina Chung. Ro is stuck. She’s just entered her thirties, she’s estranged from her mother, and her boyfriend has just left her to join a mission to Mars. Her days are spent dragging herself to her menial job at a mall aquarium, and her nights are spent drinking sharktinis (Mountain Dew and copious amounts of gin, plus a hint of jalapeno). With her best friend pulling away to focus on her upcoming wedding, Ro’s only companion is Dolores, a giant Pacific octopus who also happens to be Ro's last remaining link to her father, a marine biologist who disappeared while on an expedition when Ro was a teenager. When Dolores is sold to a wealthy investor intent on moving her to a private aquarium, Ro finds herself on the precipice of self-destruction. Wading through memories of her youth, Ro has one last chance to come to terms with her childhood trauma, recommit to those around her, and find her place in an ever-changing world. In a conversation with Frances Cha, Gina Chung talks about her debut novel. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/item/1665-gina-chung-sea-change

Recorded March 3, 2023 - Join us for a conversation with Dr. John Delury, Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University, on his new book, Agents of Subversion: The Fate of John T. Downey and the CIA's Covert War in China. This roundtable and pre-recorded video explores a Korean War era mission in China that went wrong, resulting in the 20-year imprisonment of an American operative named John T. Downey. "Agents of Subversion is an innovative work of transnational history, and it demonstrates both how the Chinese Communist regime used the fear of special agents to tighten its grip on society and why intellectuals in Cold War America presciently worried that subversion abroad could lead to repression at home." This program is moderated by Korea Society president & CEO Thomas Byrne. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/item/1656-agents-of-subversion-with-professor-john-delury

February 16, 2023 - Join this discussion with Dr. Henry W. Brands, Professor and Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, about his book The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War. The book explores the tensions between President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur as the Korean War escalates, threatening to boil over into another World War. This discussion is part of a collection of programs that mark the 70th anniversary of The Korean War Armistice Agreement and the signing of the U.S.-ROK Alliance. Professor Brands joins policy director Jonathan Corrado in conversation. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/item/1651-the-general-vs-the-president-macarthur-and-truman-at-the-brink-of-nuclear-war

February 9, 2023 - Join our discussion about the consequences of Korea’s rapid economic development on the family unit and society at large, featuring Seoul National University sociology Professor Chang Kyung-Sup. This program is a collaboration with the Policy Department and the Education Department. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/policy-and-corporate-programs/item/1631-consequences-of-korea-s-compressed-modernity

February 7, 2023 - Twenty-five years in the making, Heinz Insu Fenkl's ambitious, darkly funny, sweeping novel SKULL WATER is a haunting inter-generational coming-of-age story that grapples with identity and displacement in South Korea in the 1950s and 1970s, and reveals a history both countries would prefer to conceal. Born in South Korea to a German father and a Korean mother, Fenkl grew up in Korea, Germany, and the U.S., and his own experience informs this deeply autobiographical novel. SKULL WATER is the story of Insu, the son of a Korean mother and a GI father in the U.S. Army, and the intertwined tale of his Korean Big Uncle, who has been exiled to a mountain cave near the family village to die from a gangrenous foot. Growing up near the army base in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Insu and his two best friends, also "half and halfs," spend their days skipping school, selling scavenged Western goods on the black market, and testing the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. When Insu hears an old legend that water collected from a dead person's skull will cure any sickness, he vows to collect some to heal Big Uncle's mysterious injury. His quest takes him and his friends on a sprawling journey into some of South Korea's darkest corners. Meanwhile, Big Uncle, a geomancer uprooted by the Korean War, has embraced his solitude and fate and attempts to teach his nephew that life is not limited to what we can see or think we know. In his interview with The New Yorker, Fenkl said; "It's a Korean folk belief that stories are meant to be told, and that if one keeps them to oneself and hoards them, there will be terrible consequences." Join us for a conversation with Heinz Insu Fenkl about his latest book. For more information, please visit the link below: https://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/item/1649-heinz-insu-fenkl-skull-water

Michelle Li, an award-winning journalist and co-founder of the Very Asian Foundation, talks about introducing children to Asian cuisine through her debut children's book 'A Very Asian Guide to Korean Food'. She discusses her personal journey as an Asian adoptee, the challenges she faced growing up, and her passion for journalism. Michelle also shines a light on Asian experiences and advocacy, shares her deep connection to Korean food and culture, and emphasizes the importance of representation in media. She discusses the projects and initiatives of the Variation Foundation, including micro grants for career pivoters and the Maybook project for Asian American representation.

January 17, 2023 - Bong Joon Ho: Dissident Cinema by culture writer and screenwriter Karen Han is the first definitive critical and visual survey of the Academy Award–winning South Korean writer/director who has been making critically acclaimed feature films for more than two decades. Brilliantly illustrated and designed by the London-based film magazine Little White Lies, this lush monograph surveys Bong’s full body of work, including his short films and music videos. The accompanying text by Karen Han, interviews with Bong’s key collaborators, and foreword by David Lowery (The Green Knight) flesh out the stories behind Bong’s films and explore his rise in the cultural eye of the West. For more information, please visit the link below: https://koreasociety.org/arts-culture/item/1642-bong-joon-ho-dissident-cinema-with-karen-han