Understanding the Korean War Through the Lens of Film
On June 14th, Asia Society Korea held the year’s first face-to-face monthly lecture. Against the backdrop of the upcoming 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, distinguished ambassadors and guests from the diplomatic community were treated to a fascinating analysis of the role of film in depicting the war from South Korea, North Korea, and Chinese perspectives.
Moderated by John Delury, a senior fellow of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and professor of International Studies at Yonsei University, the lecture included insights from Tatiana Gabroussenko, professor of North Korean studies at Korea University; Henry Em, associate professor of Korean history at Yonsei University; and Andrew Salmon, Seoul-based journalist, broadcaster, and author.
Often labeled as the forgotten war, the battle on the peninsular was a vast human tragedy that defined and shaped relationships between Korea and the wider world. While the Korean War may be distant and abstract to those outside Korea, the film and cinema industry has produced hundreds of movies worldwide depicting the conflict in popular culture. As the panelists highlighted, countries often use these films to show different perspectives and historical interpretations and portray the main protagonists in various lights.
Moderator
John Delury is Professor of Chinese Studies at Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies (GSIS), where he serves as chair of the Program in International Cooperation. He is also chair of the undergraduate Program in International Studies at Yonsei’s Underwood International College (UIC), and founding director of the Yonsei Center on Oceania Studies.
He is the author, with Orville Schell, of Wealth and Power: China's Long March to the Twenty-first Century, and is writing a book about US-China relations in the early Cold War. Based in Seoul since 2010, his articles can be found in journals such as Asian Survey, Late Imperial China, and Journal of Asian Studies, his commentaries appear in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, Washington Post, and 38 North, and he contributes book reviews for the quarterly journal Global Asia, where he is associate managing editor. John is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, National Committee on US-China Relations, and National Committee on North Korea; he is also Pacific Century Institute board member, Asia Society senior fellow, National Committee on American Foreign Policy leadership council member, and Center on Strategic and International Studies adjunct fellow. He is a member of the Republic of Ireland’s foreign affairs advisory network and is invited to offer his analysis on East Asian affairs with government, think tank, corporate, and civil society organizations globally.
Professor Delury received his Ph.D. in History from Yale University.
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Panelists
Henry Em (임흥순) is associate professor of Korean history at Yonsei University Underwood International College. He was born in Seoul, grew up in Chicago, and received his BA, MA, and PhD (History, 1995) from the University of Chicago. From 1995 to 2013, he was assistant professor at UCLA and University of Michigan, and associate professor at NYU.
He was a Fulbright Senior Scholar to Korea (1998-1999) and Visiting Professor at Centre de Recherches sur la Corée, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2000). Professor Em began teaching at Yonsei University in 2013.
His recent publications include North Korea as Neighbor: Critical Scholarship on North Korea, Korea Journal, 61:3 (autumn, 2021), Christianity, the Cold War, and the Construction of the Republic of Korea, Korea Journal, 60:4 (winter, 2020), and Killer Fables: Yun Ch’i-ho, Bourgeois Enlightenment, and the Free Laborer, Journal of Korean Studies, 25:1 (March, 2020). His book, The Great Enterprise: Sovereignty and Historiography in Modern Korea, was published by Duke University Press in 2013.
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Tatiana Gabroussenko graduated from the Far Eastern State University (ex-USSR), where she majored in Korean history. She obtained her Ph.D. in East Asian Studies at the Australian National University. Tatiana is an Assistant Professor in North Korean Studies at the Faculty of Korean Studies at Korea University where she teaches subjects related to mass culture, arts and propaganda of the DPRK.
Andrew Salmon holds a BA in History and Comparative Literature from the University of Kent and an MA in Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. A resident of Seoul since 1998, he is Asia Times' Northeast Asia editor. His work has also appeared in the BBC, CNN, Forbes, France24, The International Herald Tribune, The South China Morning Post, The Times and The Washington Times.
His books on the Korean War have garnered a "Korea Wave" award from South Korea's National Assembly and a "Member of the British Empire" award from Queen Elizabeth II.
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