North Korea in a Historical and Cultural Perspective

North Korea has been dubbed secretive, its leaders unhinged, its people mindless dupes. Such descriptions are partly a result of the control that the DPRK exerts over texts and bodies that come through its borders. Filtered through foreign media, North Korea's people and places can seem to belong to another planet. However, students interested in North Korea can access the DPRK through a broad and growing range of sources including satellite imagery, archival documents, popular magazines, films, literature, art, tourism, and through interviews with former North Korean residents (defectors). When such sources are brought into conversation with scholarship about North Korea, they yield new insights into North Korea's history, politics, economy, and culture. This course will provide students with fresh perspectives on the DPRK and will give them tools to better contextualize its current position in the world. Lectures will be enriched with a roster of guest speakers.