Community Lecture Series: "Understanding North Korea"

Presenter: Franklin Rausch
Reception: 5:30 p.m.
Presentation: 6:00 p.m.

Among all the governments that came into existence after World War Two, it is difficult to find one like the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (popularly known as North Korea), which has managed to both consistently fail to guarantee the basic livelihood of its people and threaten the world with an increasingly powerful nuclear arsenal while managing to survive for decades. In this lecture, Dr. Franklin Rausch will briefly summarize how this strange state of affairs came into being through an examination of Korean history, with a focus on how the Kim family (the third generation of which is now ruling the country) came into and maintains power. He will then discuss why the North Korean state invests so much in its military even as much of its population faces serious malnutrition by focusing on the concept of “regime survival” while enumerating possible avenues for change in North Korea and their probabilities of success. 

Franklin Rausch is a professor of history at Lander University. He earned his M.A. in Asian studies at Indiana University and his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada. His research focuses on Korean history, particularly religion and violence.

Upcoming Community Lecture Series Events:

November 15 - “Traditional Fairy Tales: The Good, the Gruesome, and the Grimms” with Brittany Cuenin, lecturer of English

February 6 - “Does Literature Make Us Better People?” with Laura Martin, assistant professor of English

March 12 - “Forget What You Know: Mythbusting Memory” with Dr. Shana Southard-Dobbs, associate professor of psychology

April 2 - “A Long Walk to Church: The Camino de Santiago Today” with Dr. Carlos Mentley, professor of Spanish