This lecture will examine the origins of the Cold War in East Asia, how early the Cold War came to Korea, how the Korean War transformed the containment doctrine, how it solidified the continuing divisions in East Asia, and how it transformed defense policy in the United States, leading to a far-flung structure of seemingly permanent military bases in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and many more countries that lasts down to 2010.  Professor Cumings will also examine problems of history and memory regarding what most Americans call "the forgotten war."

Bruce Cumings teaches international history, modern Korean history and East Asian political economy at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1987 and where he is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor and the chairman of the History Department.  He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1975. He has taught at Swarthmore College (1975-77), the University of Washington (1977-86), and Northwestern University (1994-97). He is the author of the two-volume study, The Origins of the Korean War (Princeton University Press, 1981, 1990), War and Television (Visal-Routledge, 1992), Korea's Place in the Sun: A Modern History (W. W. Norton, 1997; updated ed. 2005), Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American—East Asian Relations (Duke University Press, 1999; paperback 2002), North Korea: Another Country (New Press, 2003), co-author of Inventing the Axis of Evil  (New Press, 2004), and is the editor of the modern volume of the Cambridge History of Korea (forthcoming). He is a frequent contributor to The London Review of Books, The Nation, Current History, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Le Monde Diplomatique. The first volume of his Origins won the John King Fairbank book award of the American Historical Association for the best book on East Asia in the previous two years, and the second volume won the Quincy Wright book award of the International Studies Association. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, and is the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation-funded Foreign Area Fellows program, NEH, the MacArthur Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford, and the Abe Fellowship Program of the Social Science Research Council. He was also the principal historical consultant for the Thames Television/PBS 6-hour documentary, Korea: The Unknown War. He recently published Dominion From Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power, which was ranked as one of the top 25 books of 2009 by the Atlantic Monthly. Random House will publish his short book, The Korean War, on the war’s 60th anniversary in 2010. He is also contracted to publish a new, single-volume synoptic edition of The Origins of the Korean War.

Professor Fujitani’s presentation will be drawn from his forthcoming book, Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans in WWII. The book is a comparative and transnational study of ethnic and colonial soldiers during the Asia-Pacific War (or the Second World War in the Asia-Pacific) that focuses specifically on Japanese Americans mobilized to serve in the United States army and Koreans who were recruited or drafted into the Japanese military. His research utilizes the two sites of soldiering as optics through which to examine the larger operations and structures of the changing U.S. and Japanese national empires as they struggled to manage racialized populations within the larger demands of conducting total war. He seeks to show how discussions about, policies, and representations of these two sets of soldiers tell us a great deal about the changing characteristics of wartime racism, nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, gender politics, the family, and some other related issues on both sides of the Pacific that go well beyond the soldiers themselves, and whose repercussions remain with us today. The seminar will focus on the Korean Japanese side of his research.

Takashi Fujitani is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. His primary areas of research are modern and contemporary Japanese history, East Asian history, and transnational history (primarily U.S./Japan and Asia-Pacific). His publications include: Splendid Monarchy: Power and Pageantry in Modern Japan (UC Press, 1996; Japanese version, 1994; Korean translation, 2003);  Perilous Memories: The Asia Pacific War(s) (co-editor, Duke, 2001); and  Race for Empire: Koreans as Japanese and Japanese as Americans in WWII (forthcoming, UC Press; Japanese version, Iwanami Shoten); as well as numerous book chapters and articles published in Korean, Japanese and English. His recent research has been funded by the John. S. Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Social Science Research Council.

This seminar is supported by a generous grant from Koret Foundation.

Since President Lee Myung-bak introduced the "Green Growth" policy in 2008, Korea has actively advocated it in every aspect of the society as a new engine of growth. The Presidential Committee on Green Growth was created as a control tower of the policy developments and green industries were identified, and along the same line of efforts, the Basic Law on Green Growth was enacted.  Korea, among the developing countries under the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC), was the first to volunteer to reduce emissions by 30 percent of anticipated BAU by 2020.  It also initiated the East Asia Climate Partnership through which 200 million USD was pledged to assist developing countries in the region to cope with climate change.  The Lee administration has revealed its ambitious plans to launch Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) next year, which is presumed to play a catalyst role in inducing a low carbon economy.  Furthermore, it is expected that Korea, as Chair of the G20 in 2010, will aggressively promote green finance and green technology.

Suh Yong Chung is Associate Professor in the Division of International Studies at Korea University and is an international expert on sustainable development law and policy. His research covers various emerging issues in the environment and sustainable development such as climate change, marine environment, and biodiversity both at global and regional level. His most recent works focus on internationalization of Green Growth policy, post-2010 climate change regime formation, and regional environmental institution building in Northeast Asia.  He is a member of the Compliance Committee of the UN Basel Convention, and has participated in various activities of international organizations including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), UNDP/GEF Yellow Sea Large Marine Ecosystem Project, UNEP’s Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP), and United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (UNESCAP). He has also advised on international law and policy issues in Korea for the Presidential Committee on Green Growth, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Ministry of Environment and the Organizing Committee of the 2012 Yeosu EXPO.
 
Suh Yong Chung holds degrees in law and international relations from Seoul National University, the London School of Economics and Stanford Law School. He was a researcher at Shorenstein APARC and has continuously been involved in its activities as the Secretary General of the Stanford APARC Forum in Korea.

Over the years, Kim Jong Il has pursued four inter-related goals that together might be considered as an implicit national security strategy:

1. reviving the economy; 
2. buttressing domestic support at a time of leadership transition; 
3. widening North Korea's "diplomatic space" through 360-degree diplomacy; and
4. shoring up the country´s aging military.  

These goals are tightly linked but also involve significant trade-offs that may offer greater possibilities than ususally supposed for solving the issue of its nuclear weapons program.

Dr. John Merrill is the head of the Northeast Asia Division of U.S. State Department´s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and Adjunct Professor in the School of International Studies of The Johns Hopkins University.  He is the author of Korea: The Peninsular Origins of the War, 1945-50 and The Cheju-do Rebellion as well as numerous journal articles.