The Korea Program at Stanford will mark its 20-year anniversary with a conference focused on North Korean issues and South Korea’s pop culture wave (Hallyu), two aspects of Korea that continue to intrigue the public, exploring how to translate this public attention into an increased academic interest in Korea.

This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

Featuring a keynote address by
Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations
 

DAY 1: Thursday, May 19, 9:00 a.m. - 5:15 p.m.

9:00-9:15 a.m.
Opening and Welcome Remarks

Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Asia-Pacific Research Center and Korea Program, Stanford
Michael McFaul, Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford
Gabriella Safran, Senior Associate Dean of Humanities and Arts, Stanford

9:15-10:45 a.m.
Panel on North Korea

Moderated by Yumi Moon, Associate Professor of History, Stanford

Siegfried Hecker, Professor Emeritus, Management Science and Engineering; Senior Fellow Emeritus, FSI, Stanford
Kim Sook, former ROK Ambassador to UN; Executive Director, Ban Ki-moon Foundation for a Better Future
Joohee Cho, Seoul Bureau Chief, ABC News

11:00-11:50 a.m. 
Korea Program at Stanford: Past, Present, and Future 

Moderated by Kelsi Caywood, Research Associate, Korea Program, APARC, Stanford

Paul Chang, Associate Professor of Sociology, Harvard University
Joon-woo Park, former ROK Ambassador to EU and Singapore; 2011-12 Koret Fellow
Jong Chun Woo, former president of Stanford APARC-Seoul Forum; Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University
Megan Faircloth, Senior in East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford

11:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m.        Lunch Break

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Introduction by H.R. McMaster, former National Security Advisor; Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford

Moderated by Gi-Wook Shin, Director of APARC and Korea Program, Stanford
 

2:00-3:30 p.m.
Panel on the Korean Wave

Moderated by Dafna Zur, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Director of Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford

SUHO, Leader of EXO
Angela Killoren, CEO of CJ ENM America, Inc.
Marci Kwon, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History, Stanford

3:45-5:15 p.m.
Documentaries on K-pop and North Korean Human Rights (teaser)*

Moderated by Haley Gordon, Research Associate, Korea Program, APARC, Stanford

Introduction of the films by Director Hark Joon Lee and Director of Photography Byeon Jaegil 

Vivian Zhu, Junior in International Relations and East Asian Studies, Stanford
Youlim Kim, Third-year PhD student in Microbiology & Immunology, Stanford
*The documentaries will not be shown on the livestream

Day 2: Friday, May 20, 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

9:00-10:30 a.m.
How to Translate Interest in North Korea and K-pop into Korean Studies

Moderated by Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Asia-Pacific Research Center and Korea Program

David Kang, Professor of International Relations and Business, USC
Yumi Moon, Associate Professor of History, Stanford
Michelle Cho, Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto
Dafna Zur, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Director of Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford

10:45 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Future Visions of K-pop

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Introduction by Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Asia-Pacific Research Center and Korea Program

Conversation with:
Dafna Zur, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Director of Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford
SUHO, Leader of EXO

This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

South Korean popular culture has spread to all corners of the globe, including South Korea’s closed-off neighbor to the north. While North Korea’s Kim Jong Un regime has sought to eradicate the presence of K-pop and South Korean television dramas in his country — even threatening execution for those who consume these cultural products — their popularity endures in North Korea. This panel will address questions relating to the spread of the Korean Wave (Hallyu) in North Korea. How widespread is consumption of South Korean popular culture in the North? Are these cultural products contributing to social change in North Korea, and if so, to what extent? Does the Korean Wave have the potential to contribute to political unrest and change in North Korea?

Speakers:

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Sunny Yoon is a professor of Media and Communication at Hanyang University in Seoul. Her research encompasses the globalization of Korean media, the interaction of religion and new media, cultural politics, youth culture, and fandom of Korean popular culture. She is the author of Communication Technology and Creative Industries and Global Media and Asian Identity: Cultural Hybridity or Cultural Resistance, and she has authored papers and a book chapter on the impact of mobile media and South Korean media on North Korean youth culture and social change. She has served as Section Head for Visual Culture in the International Association for Media and Communication Research, as well as the editor-in-chief of the journal of Asian Communication Research. She has been a visiting fellow at Yale University and University of Cambridge, as well as a visiting professor at Doshisha University in Japan, National Taiwan University, and King's College London. Professor of Media and Communication, Hanyang University, Korea

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Suk-Young Kim is a professor of Theater and Performance Studies at UCLA where she also directs Center for Performance Studies. She is the author of Illusive Utopia :Theater, Film, and Everyday Performance in North Korea (Michigan, 2010), DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border (Columbia, 2014), and most recently, K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance (Stanford, 2018). Her scholarship has been recognized by the James Palais Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies, the Association for Theater in Higher Education Outstanding Book Award, and ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship. Currently She is working on a book titled Way Ahead of Squid Game (forthcoming in 2023), Millennial North Korea: Forbidden Media and Living Creatively with Surveillance (Stanford UP, under contract) and is editing Cambridge Companion to K-Pop. Her comments on Korean cultural politics have been featured in major media outlets, such as Billboard, CNN, NPR, and the New York Times.

Moderator: Haley Gordon, Research Associate in Korea Program at APARC, Stanford University

This event is made possible by generous support from the Korea Foundation and other friends of the Korea Program.

Common sense states that foreign policy rarely becomes an issue in South Korea’s elections. However, given the unusually high anti-China sentiment among the South Korean public today, some view that it may become an “unspoken agenda” that every South Korean voter is cognizant about. As Seoul and Beijing mark their 30^th diplomatic anniversary this year, their mutual attraction appears visibly moderated. Is it a temporary setback in the neighboring countries’ relationship? What choices will Kim Jong-un make under strategic competition between the U.S. and China? The panel will examine the factors that will shape and influence the future prospect of the Seoul-Beijing ties and the relationship between North Korea and China.   

Speakers:

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Seong-hyon Lee is a Senior Fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations and a visiting scholar at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. His research focuses on contemporary relations between China and South Korea. Lee received a bachelor’s degree from Grinnell College, a master’s degree from Harvard University and a PhD from Tsinghua University.

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Sheen Woo, Special Policy Advisor to the South Korean Ambassador in China, joined the Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC as a 2021-22 visiting scholar. He is a specialist in China-North Korea relations with expertise in Chinese aid and sanctions against North Korea. He has worked at and with a variety of organizations including NGOs, start-ups, art centers, and state-run think tanks in Korea and China. While at APARC, his research focus is on the development and changes of China's aid to North Korea. He holds a PhD in Management Science from Tsinghua University.

Gi-Wook Shin, director of APARC and the Korea Program, will moderate the discussion.

This event is part of Shorenstein APARC's winter 2022 webinar series, New Frontiers: Technology, Politics, and Society in the Asia-Pacific.

While North Korea’s nuclear capabilities often make headlines, the DPRK increasingly poses a risk that is more difficult to see, in the form of sophisticated cyber attacks. Neighboring South Korea, one of the most digitized nations in the world, must closely monitor and defend against North Korea’s cyber threat, as attacks can disrupt economic, social, and defense infrastructures. This panel will discuss what kind of cyber threat North Korea poses to South Korea and beyond, how South Korea addresses the North Korean cyber attacks, and what other countries can learn from their response.

Speakers:

Jenny Jun is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative. Her current research explores the dynamics of coercion in cyberspace. Her broader interests include cyber conflict, North Korea, and security issues in East Asia. Jenny is a co-author of the 2015 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report North Korea’s Cyber Operations: Strategy and Responses, published by Rowman & Littlefield. She has presented her work on North Korea’s cyber operations at various panels and has provided multiple government briefings and media interviews on the topic. She received her MA and BS each from the Security Studies Program (SSP) and the School of Foreign Service (SFS) at Georgetown University.

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So Jeong Kim is a principal researcher at the National Security Research Institute where she joined in 2004. She currently leads the cybersecurity policy team and provides recommendations on cybersecurity policy and regulatory issues. She was involved in drafting South Korea’s National Cyber Security Strategy published in April 2019, in the 4thand 5th UN Group of Governmental Experts as an adviser, and in the MERIDIAN process as an advisor and organizer. Her main research area is in national cybersecurity policy, international norm-setting processes, confidence building measures, critical information infrastructure protection, law and regulations, and cybersecurity evaluation development. She received her PhD in Engineering from the Graduate School of Information Security at Korea University in 2005.

Gi-Wook Shin, director of APARC and the Korea Program at Stanford University, will moderate the discussion.

This is a joint event with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.

Event Time: October 28, 12:00 PM (PDT)/3:00 PM (EDT)
Please register for this event at the CSIS event website, https://bit.ly/3DC4zI3.

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Speakers:
Victor Cha is Senior Vice President and Korea Chair at CSIS; Vice Dean for Faculty and Graduate Affairs & D.S. Song-KF Professor of Government at Georgetown University. He left the White House in 2007 after serving since 2004 as director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council (NSC). At the White House, he was responsible primarily for Japan, the Korean Peninsula, Australia/New Zealand, and Pacific Island nation affairs. He was also the deputy head of delegation for the United States at the Six-Party Talks in Beijing and received two outstanding service commendations during his tenure at the NSC. He was the 2019-20 Koret Fellow for the winter quarter at Stanford.

Robert King served as the special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, an ambassadorial-ranked position, at the Department of State, from 2009 to 2017. He is a senior advisor to the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a senior fellow at the Korea Economic Institute, and a board member of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea in Washington, D.C. Ambassador King was the 2019-20 Koret Fellow for the fall quarter at Stanford.

Nat Kretchun is Vice President for Programs at the Open Technology Fund (OTF), a congressionally funded non-profit organization that supports the development and deployment of anti-censorship, privacy, and security technologies for populations living under repressive information censorship regimes.

Moderator:
Gi-Wook Shin, Director of Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Korea Program; the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, Stanford University