Japanese pop culture has gained a global following in recent years, with recognition that now extends far beyond the stereotypes of oriental exotica. With the reach of pop culture comes tremendous economic potential. Nakamura, whose varied experiences in rock, art, and multimedia have been applied to policymaking and education, gives a preview of a new research project he is coordinating on the impact of pop culture on politics, society, and the economy. Japan's economic troubles have taken center stage during the last decade. But has Japan's "lost decade" really been a "glorious decade"?

The era of Three Kims is passing away. Three Kims dominated Korean politics for the past three decades. Two Kims (Kim Young Sam and Kim Dae Jung) led democratization movement in the 70s and 80s, and another Kim (Kim Jong Pil) represented a moderate alternative to Park Chung Hee's dictatorship within an authoritarian ruling circle. Together, they presided over democratic transition in the 1980s and were leading players in restored democratic competition since 1987.

Now the era of Three Kims is expected to terminate with the presidential election of December 2002. The exit of Three Kims signifies the end of the first generation of democracy. The presidential election will decide who will lead the country in Post-Three Kims era. The outcome of presidential election would surely be the turning point for Korean democracy. Will Korean democracy move forward to democratic deepening or begin to erode?

Professor Im will review conceptual issues in discussing democratic consolidation and then analyze the achievements, failures, and unfinished jobs that the leaders of the first generation of Korean democracy have to their credit. He will also discuss the future of Korean democracy in the post-Three Kims era.

Carter J. Eckert is Professor of Korean History and Director of the Korea Institute at Harvard University. Since 1985, he has been teaching Korean history at Harvard and working to build up the Harvard Korean studies program there. He is the author of a number of books and articles, including Offspring of Empire: The Colonial Origins of Korean Capitalism, which received the John K. Fairbank Prize in East Asian History from the American Historical Association, as well as the John Whitney Hall Book Prize from the Association for Asian Studies. Currently he is engaged in several projects relating to modern Korean history, including the Cambridge History of Korea, and a study of the late president of South Korea, Park Chung Hee, and the role of the military in South Korea's national development.

Pamela Yatsko the former Shanghai correspondent for the Far Eastern Review will discuss her new book, New Shanghai: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City.

Ian Buruma was born in the Netherlands, where he studied Chinese at Leyden University. From 1975 to 1978 he was a research fellow in Japanese cinema at Nihon University College of Arts. He lived in Tokyo until 1980, and worked as a translator, actor, photographer, documentary filmmaker and journalist.

From 1982 to 1986, he was cultural editor for the Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong. During that time he traveled to most parts of Asia. He moved to London in 1990, where he worked for one year as foreign editor for the Spectator. In 1991, he was a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin. In 1990 he spent a year in Washington, D.C. at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, and in 1991 he was the Alistair Horne Fellow at St. Anthony's College, Oxford.

Buruma is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, the New Republic, and other publications in the United States and Europe. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian in London.

Buruma's book The Wages of Guilt analyzes the collective memory of Germany and Japan in the post-war years. Delving into their emotions, thoughts and anger, Buruma tries to uncover how people in both countries dealt with, and are still dealing with, the stigma of being the war aggressors in very different ways.

Join us for a panel discussion of the issues raised in Buruma's book. The panel discussants are Professor's Daniel Okimoto, Shorenstein APARC and Political Science and James Sheehan, History. Professor Thomas Rohlen of Shorenstein APARC will be the moderator.

How was it that Afghanistan, a country that was often conquered and ruled by outsiders before 1800, became seemingly impossible to conquer and rule in the 19th and 20th centuries? An historical examination of Afghan history reveals that premodern Central Asian rulers looked upon war and conquest as the business of displacing rival elites, a process having little or nothing to do with the inhabitants of the territory. During the 19th century, this pattern began to change in Afghanistan where governments found themselves dependent on raising tribal armies to repel foreign invaders, such as the British, at the cost of sharing power with them in the postwar period. This pattern continued into the 20th century when during each period of state collapse drew an ever-wider part of the population into the political struggle for power. The Soviet invasion drew the widest possible opposition but upon their withdrawal no faction was able to create a stable government. Afghanistan fell into ten years of civil war that opened it up to extreme movements such the Taliban and its exploitation by outsiders such as Osama bin Laden. Since war alone has now proved incapable of solving Afghanistan's problems the current conflict in Afghanistan can only be won by a wider policy that makes Afghanistan's economic and political reconstruction a priority in a way that can end its cycle of anarchy.