Speaker: Suzy Kim, Rutgers University

Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

While North Korea is often known for its top-down coercive mechanisms that enforce compliance, such paternalistic order is complemented by maternal affect that elicits love and loyalty for the leaders. In effect, women proved to be the primary cultural conduits, and feminine tropes became models for emulation throughout society. Comparing North Korean women with other socialist female icons, this talk explores how alternative femininities became markers of ideal citizens in the name of state feminism that professed equality for the sexes. Through an analysis of critical differences between various cultural works from films to operas, the talk seeks to apprehend the diverse strategies to deal with the ‘woman question’ in North Korea and the possibilities opened up by multivariate socialist feminisms as varied ways to address the oppression of women. In doing so, I deliberately challenge simplistic understandings of not only socialism, but more importantly, the socialist woman question, illustrating the extent to which feminism was indeed part of the socialist agenda.

About PROFESSOR SUZY KIM

Professor Kim began teaching Korean Studies at Rutgers in 2010 and has previously taught at Emerson College, Boston College, and Oberlin College after receiving her Ph.D. in Modern Korean History at the University of Chicago. Her current research focuses on North Korean social history, looking at changes in everyday life between 1945 after the end of Japanese colonial rule to 1950 before the start of the Korean War. Her research interests include critical theory, gender studies, and oral history.

She is currently working on a manuscript titled Politics of Empowerment: Everyday Life in North Korea 1945-50, examining the immediate post-colonial period of North Korean history from 1945 when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule to 1950 before the start of the Korean War. Focusing on the local people's committees and mass organizations that were spontaneously organized and later centralized, she reconstructs the beginnings of North Korean society through a micro-level study of everyday life, informing more generally the underlying dynamic of how processes of social change come together with processes of ossification in the dialectic between agency and structure.

Event Contact: [email protected], 510-643-9787

Speaker: Suzy Kim, Rutgers University

Sponsor: Center for Korean Studies (CKS)

While North Korea is often known for its top-down coercive mechanisms that enforce compliance, such paternalistic order is complemented by maternal affect that elicits love and loyalty for the leaders. In effect, women proved to be the primary cultural conduits, and feminine tropes became models for emulation throughout society. Comparing North Korean women with other socialist female icons, this talk explores how alternative femininities became markers of ideal citizens in the name of state feminism that professed equality for the sexes. Through an analysis of critical differences between various cultural works from films to operas, the talk seeks to apprehend the diverse strategies to deal with the ‘woman question’ in North Korea and the possibilities opened up by multivariate socialist feminisms as varied ways to address the oppression of women. In doing so, I deliberately challenge simplistic understandings of not only socialism, but more importantly, the socialist woman question, illustrating the extent to which feminism was indeed part of the socialist agenda.

About PROFESSOR SUZY KIM

Professor Kim began teaching Korean Studies at Rutgers in 2010 and has previously taught at Emerson College, Boston College, and Oberlin College after receiving her Ph.D. in Modern Korean History at the University of Chicago. Her current research focuses on North Korean social history, looking at changes in everyday life between 1945 after the end of Japanese colonial rule to 1950 before the start of the Korean War. Her research interests include critical theory, gender studies, and oral history.

She is currently working on a manuscript titled Politics of Empowerment: Everyday Life in North Korea 1945-50, examining the immediate post-colonial period of North Korean history from 1945 when Korea was liberated from Japanese colonial rule to 1950 before the start of the Korean War. Focusing on the local people's committees and mass organizations that were spontaneously organized and later centralized, she reconstructs the beginnings of North Korean society through a micro-level study of everyday life, informing more generally the underlying dynamic of how processes of social change come together with processes of ossification in the dialectic between agency and structure.

Event Contact: [email protected], 510-643-9787