Experiencing the Korean War

Tuesday, December 8th, 2020  |  8 PM - 9:30 PM ET | Via Zoom

View PDF version of this event poster (192KB)

Event organized by Hong Kal (Department of Visual Art & Art History)

Please RSVP here by December 7th, 2020

Abstract:

What constitutes "experience" in the experience of war continues to be a subject of debate in the social and cultural studies of modern warfare, especially with reference to the 1914-1918 war, a foundational episode of modern Europe and in the history of decolonization. In this talk, professor Kwon will extend this debate to the theatre of the Korean War, a pivotal episode of modern Koreas and in the history of the postcolonial Cold War. The focus will be on the non-combatant experience of the 1950-1953 war and on the interplay between traditional and modern political subjectivities in the making of this historical experience. It will also briefly consider this war experience in the broad context of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War in 2020 and in the diverging public memories of this war in the two Koreas as well as between the United States and China.

Speaker Bio:

Heonik Kwon is Senior Research Fellow in Social Science and Professor of Social Anthropology at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. Author of several prize-winning books on the Vietnam War and Cold War social histories, his new book is After the Korean War: An Intimate History (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

The virtual event is presented by the Korean office for Research and Education (KORE) at York University which is funded by the Academy of Korean Studies.

For more information: kore@yorku.ca || https://yorku.ca/research/kore/