Wed, 29 April 2015
Since withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, North Korea successfully conducted three nuclear tests and officially declared in 2009 that it had developed a nuclear weapon. Beyond Pyongyang’s rhetorics and the rumors around its atomic program, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s true nuclear capabilities remain largely unknown. Does North Korea have the technology and the weapon systems to deliver a nuclear warhead on targets in South Korea or, even further, in America? What would be the actual destructive power of these payloads? What is the current American and South Korean doctrine regarding nuclear deterrence? And perhaps more importantly, is effective deterrence towards North Korea and its nuclear weapons even feasible? To answer these questions, there is probably no one more qualified than our guest for this episode: Dr. Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation and a Professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He specializes in “asymmetric threats” such as weapons of mass destruction, and Northeast Asian military issues. These include the future military force requirements in South Korea, the Korean military balance, counters to North Korean chemical and biological weapon threats in Korea and Japan, dealing with a North Korean collapse, changes in the Northeast Asia security environment, and deterrence of nuclear threats. Dr. Bennett has worked with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, U.S. Forces in Korea and Japan, the U.S. Pacific Command and Central Command, the ROK and Japanese militaries, and the ROK National Assembly. He received his Bachelor of Science in Economics from the California Institute of Technology and his PhD in policy analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School. |
Wed, 22 April 2015
Since its rapid growth in the nineties, K-Pop has become a multi-billion dollar industry and an integral part of South Korea’s image both domestically and abroad. In stark contrast and despite support from the South Korean government, Korean traditional music, or Gugak, remains a somewhat unknown tradition in and outside Korea. How do we define Korean traditional music? What position does it hold in contemporary South Korean society? What role has the government played in its evolution since the end of the Korean War? Will Gugak follow a path similar to K-Pop – a product designed for export – or is it still a living and thriving tradition? To answer these questions, we had the pleasure of interviewing Prof. Hilary Vanessa Finchum-Sung. Prof. Finchum-Sung earned her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from Indiana University in 2002 and is now Associate Professor in the Department of Korean Music at Seoul National University. She has served as the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Major in Music Education at Seoul National University, and formerly worked as a lecturer and researcher at the University of San Francisco and UC Berkeley. She has also published in several academic journals, including Ethnomusicology, The World of Music, and the Seoul Journal of Korean Studies. |
Thu, 16 April 2015
Seventy years ago, at the end of the Second World War, Germany and the Korean Peninsula were divided. Yet, while the former has now been reunited for twenty five years, Korean reunification remains a distant prospect. Under what conditions could, then, unification happen? What steps are being taken right now to prepare for this possibility? And what lessons can we draw from the German experience of reunification? In order to answer these questions, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Bernhard Seliger. Dr. Seliger is since 2002 the resident representative in Seoul of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, which is associated with the German conservative party CSU. He is Associate Editor of the North Korean Review and serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Korean Journal of Unification Affairs. He was also a Guest Professor at Seoul National University’s Graduate School of Public Administration from 2004 to 2007. Dr. Seliger received his PhD from the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel. His doctoral dissertation was awarded the First Prize of the Wolfgang-Ritter Foundation. |
Wed, 8 April 2015
The sinking of the Sewol one year ago highlighted, among several other issues, the failure of the Korean media to report on the unfolding situation in an accurate and professional manner. Korea’s second-largest newspaper, the JoongAng Ilbo, published a full-page apology to its readers soon after the disaster, seeking forgiveness for its faulty reporting. Our guest for this episode, John Francis Power, argues that this is only one of many examples of the various issues plaguing the Korean news landscape. In a feature article he wrote for Groove Korea last year, John depicts an industry under pressure from both government and corporate interests, and where investigative journalism and rigorous reporting are often discouraged. John Power is an Irish journalist based in Seoul since 2010. He has written over 200 articles on a broad range of Korea-related topics, including food safety, domestic violence, politics, libel law, rail safety and various other issues. John has worked for The Korea Herald and Yonhap News, and has published his work in several international media outlets, including Christian Science Monitor, The Diplomat, the BBC, Australia’s ABC and Ireland’s RTE. |
Wed, 1 April 2015
This year will mark the 70th (and not the 60th, as we erroneously refer to in episode's introduction) anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Yet, whereas European countries have learnt to live and thrive with each other, this seems far from being the case for Korea and its former colonial master: Japan. Historical disputes are commonplace and the relation between the two states seems to deteriorate year after year. Why do these historical disputes exist between Japan and Korea? Under which conditions did they develop and why have they not been resolved since the end of the Second World War? In order to answer these questions, we had the privilege of speaking with Professor Kan Kimura. Professor Kimura obtained his Bachelor's, Master's and Phd in Law from Kyoto University, writing his doctoral dissertation on South Korean nationalism. A Professor at Kobe University's Graduate School of Cooperation Studies since 1997, he was also a visiting scholar at various institutions, including Korea University, the Australian National University and Harvard. Professor Kimura was also a member of the First and Second Japan-Korea Collaborative History Research Committees initially set up by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Korean President Kim Dae-jung to promote "mutual understanding concerning accurate facts and recognition of history." |