Hagiography of the Kims & the Childhood of Saints: Kim Il-sung
In this essay Christopher Richardson explores the childhood hagiography of Kim Il-sung, “the master narrative from which all others derive,” and in so doing locates the origins of regime durability and state legitimacy.
Recent Reproductions of South Korean “National Hero” Ahn Jung-geun
One can learn a lot about a nation by who is elevated to the status of “national hero.” Here, Steven Denney reviews two recent cultural products concerning independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun, juxtaposing them against Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper.”
Mountains and Seas of Gold: 2015 New Year’s Message
Robert Winstanley-Chesters returns to Sino-NK with his thoughts on Kim Jong-un’s 2015 New Year’s Address from a developmental and narrative point of view, going past – way, way past – debatable calls for inter-Korean rapprochement to look at the developmental sloughs and sumps therein concealed.
Over the Line: How Representative Was Yang Junfeng’s FT Article of Chinese Academic Opinion on North Korea?
Prompted by the 2013 dismissal of Deng Yuwen from his post at the Central Party School’s Study Times journal and the publication of an op-ed in the English-language Financial Times advocating China’s abandonment of North Korea, Sino-NK investigates how the Party responded and what ordinary academics really think about Sino-DPRK relations in China today.
Anarchy and Assimilation: A Review of Recently Published Books in East Asian Studies
In this dual book review, Dr. Robert Winstanley-Chesters and Steven Denney review Sho Konishi’s Anarchist Modernity: Cooperatism and Japanese-Russian Intellectual Relations in Modern Japan and Todd Henry’s Assimilating Seoul: Japanese Rule and the Politics of Public Space in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945, respectively.
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