Stanford University

Korean Studies Program welcomes visiting fellows and scholars for 2009-2010 academic year

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The Korean Studies Program at Asia-Pacific Research Center welcomes Pantech Fellow, Koret Fellow, and visiting scholars from diverse backgrounds and experiences for 2009-2010 academic year.

Pantech Fellow

  • Peter Behk: former executive director of the U.S. Commitee for Human Rights in North Korea

Koret Fellow

  • Byungwon Bahk: former Senior Advisor to President Lee Myung-bak of Korea

Visiting Scholars

  • Young Whan Kihl: Professor Emeritus, department of Political Science, Iowa State University
  • Tong Ki Woo: former President of Yeungnam University, Korea
  • Na-Ree Lee: Chief Reporter, JoonAng Ilbo, Korea
  • Hyungkuk Youm: Attorney at Law, Korean Public Interest Lawyers' Group
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War and its Aftermath in North Korea: Images from the 1950s

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In the 1950s the North Korean people lived through the cataclysm of the Korean War and the ferment of postwar reconstruction. Rare photographs have now emerged that help shed light on this turbulent era. In an audiovisual presentation, Chris Springer shares some of these photos from his new book North Korea Caught in Time: Images of War and Reconstruction.

The images depict the devastation wreaked by U.S. bombing, the destitution faced by civilians, the operations of the North Korean army, and the reconstruction of shattered cities. Also shown are senior politicians who were later purged and erased from the official record. Chris Springer will explain the photos’ varied origins (from both official and amateur photographers) and discuss what the images reveal about North Korean history.

California-born Chris Springer is the author of North Korea Caught in Time (2009) and Pyongyang: The Hidden History of the North Korean Capital (2003). He also curated the 2002 exhibition Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Budapest, Hungary. His research focuses on North Korean domestic history. He has visited North Korea three times.

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Chris Springer Speaker
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Korean Studies Colloquium Series

David Straub joins Clinton delegation to North Korea to secure release of Current TV journalists

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David Straub, associate director of the Korean Studies Program at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC), was a part of the delegation led by former president Bill Clinton to secure the early August release of two Current TV journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, held in North Korea since mid March 2009. Straub, a noted educator and commentator on Northeast Asian affairs, served as head of the political section of the U.S. embassy in Seoul, South Korea from 1999 to 2002, and then as director of the State Department’s Korea desk from 2002 to 2004, where he played a key working level role in the Six-Party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.

The Current TV journalists were arrested on March 17 near the North Korea border with China while reporting on human trafficking for San Francisco-based Current TV, co-founded by former vice president Al Gore and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt. In June, the two journalists were sentenced to 12 years hard labor. Held in isolation from each other, the two were allowed periodic phone conversations with their families.  According to public reports, the journalists told their families in a July phone call that North Korea would grant them amnesty “if an envoy in the person of Bill Clinton would agree to come to Pyongyang and seek their release.”

On August 4, following a visit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and a somber Clinton – a meeting highly photographed and publicized in North Korea, the two journalists were released to the Clinton delegation and flew home to Los Angeles to their families.  Visibly exhausted upon their arrival in Burbank, the two journalists chose not to comment. Laura Ling has announced through her sister Lisa, who is also a journalist, that she is preparing an account of their ordeal.

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Two jailed American journalists in North Korea returned home

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Former President Bill Clinton and his delegation brought the two American journalists home. North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il issued the journalists a "special pardon" when Mr. Clinton and his delegation met him in Pyongyang. "Among those accompanying Mr. Clinton was David Straub," associate director of Korean Studies Program at APARC, "who had held talks with the North Koreans through what is known as the 'New York connection.'"
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Daniel Sneider comments on the release of two Current TV journalists to Associated Press

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Current TV's journalists' release followed weeks of quiet negotiations between the State Department and the North Korean mission to the United Nations says Daniel C. Sneider, Associate Director for Research at the Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center. "Nobody wanted this to be a distraction from the more substantially difficult issues we have with North Korea," he said. "There was a desire by the administration to resolve this quietly, and from the very beginning they didn't allow it to become a huge public issue."
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Korean Strategic Thoughts on Regional Security Cooperation

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This talk will examine the evolution of Korean strategic thought on regionalism, with particular focus on regional security cooperation:

  1. How does South Korean regional thinking differ from that of its neighbors, and how has it evolved over time?,
  2. Was there any discernable strategic thought to realize regional aspirations during the cold war era, and afterward how has it responded to the dynamics of regionalism in Northeast Asia?,
  3. Is South Korean strategic thought on regionalism long-term, goal-oriented, and consistent? Does it set priorities, recognize trade-offs, and change in response to actual results or new developments in the region? How do competing visions of domestic forces define its scope and direction?,
  4. Under what circumstances has Seoul given regional multilateral cooperation a prominent place in its strategic thinking and national security doctrine? Is it based on careful deliberations and a realistic understanding of costs and benefits?,
  5. Wither to the 6 Party Talks (given North Korea said the Talks are dead) and a five-party proposal by Profesident Lee Myung Bak, about which China seems reluctant?

The speaker will review Seoul’s strategic thought on regional multilateral cooperation in Northeast Asia during and after the cold war, followed by consideration of the challenges and opportunities for growing regionalism with Korean “centrality.”

Shin-wha Lee is currently a visiting professor at School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Columbia University and also serving as a Scholar-in-Residence at the Korean Permanent Mission to the United Nations.  She worked at the World Bank and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Sudan. She served as Special Advisor to the United Nations, 'Rwandan Independent Inquiry,' Chair's Advisor of East Asian Vision Group (EAVG), and Coordinator of UNESCO Chair on Peace, Democracy and Human Rights.  She has published numerous articles and books on global security, international  organizations, East Asian security cooperation, UN peacekeeping operations, and nontraditional security such as environmental and human security. Lee holds a Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland at College Park.

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Shin-wha Lee Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Korea University Speaker
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Korea Program
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

First Drafts of Korea

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Cover of "First Drafts of Korea" showing a computer keyboard

Few regions rival the Korean Peninsula in strategic importance to U.S. foreign policy. For half a century, America has stationed tens of thousands of troops in South Korea to defend its ally from the threat of North Korean aggression. South Korea, in turn, is critical to the defense of Japan, another ally and the linchpin of American interests in East Asia. The rise of a nuclear-armed North has upped the ante.

Yet despite the stakes, the two Koreas have registered only episodically on the radar of the United States. The troubling gap between American perceptions of the peninsula and its strategic importance remained an unexplored phenomenon until now. First Drafts of Korea breaks new ground in examining how the American mass media shape U.S. perceptions of both Koreas and, as a result, influence U.S. foreign policy.

Beginning with a detailed analysis of American newspaper coverage of Korea between 1992 and 2003, the book features essays by Western journalists and senior U.S. officials with firsthand experience on the peninsula over the past two decades. These include frank accounts of the unique frustrations of covering Kim Jong-il's North Korea, undoubtedly the most closed and media-unfriendly nation on earth.

Addressing topics ranging from the democratization of South Korea in the 1980s to today's deteriorating nuclear crisis, the book's distinguished contributors offer unique insights into American media coverage of the peninsula and its impact on policymaking in Washington. What emerges is a complex, shifting portrait of two rival nations sharing one peninsula whose future remains inextricably linked to the global security interests of the United States.

Desk, examination, or review copies can be requested through Stanford University Press.

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The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier

Authors
Donald Macintyre
Gi-Wook Shin
Book Publisher
Shorenstein APARC
Book Publisher External URL
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