The Korea Society

October 23, 2014 - Suki Kim, who has written about North Korea for Harper's and The New York Review of Books,discusses Without You, There Is No Us, her fascinating new book which chronicles her six month stay in North Korea, where she taught English to the sons of the North Korean elite at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology during the end of Kim Jong Il’s reign.

For more information, please visit the link below:
http://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/literature/without_you_there_is_no_us.html

November 17, 2014 - Daniel Sneider, Associate Director of Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center, talks about his family’s long engagement with Korea.

Lea Sneider has a passion for folk art: the ceramics, woodwork, paintings, and sculpture used and enjoyed in everyday life. While accompanying her husband, Richard L. Sneider, to his appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Korea in 1974, Mrs. Sneider became an avid explorer of the art galleries and museums of Seoul, Daegu, and Busan. She sought out scholars of the rich tradition of Korean folk art, a field largely unexplored in the West at the time. 

After returning to the United States, Mrs. Sneider became an art dealer, curator, and influential mentor, as three of her former assistants went on to become East Asian art teachers in leading US universities: Princeton, Chicago and Brigham Young. Sneider, together with Robert Moes, former Curator of Asian Art at the Brooklyn Museum, produced the first-ever exhibition of Korean folk art in the West, Auspicious Spirits: Korean Folk Paintings and Related Objects, which opened in New York in 1983 and traveled across the country. "The work in Auspicious Spirits has the magic that has come to be expected from Asian art of the first quality," wrote the New York Times.

This exhibition pays tribute to Lea Sneider, a great patron of Korean art and longtime board member of The Korea Society, with pieces from her personal collection.

For more information, please visit the link below:
http://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/gallery-talks/the_sneider_legacy.html

November 14, 2014 - Former UN Panel of Experts member William Newcomb explains sanctions on North Korea, the current momentum for and against sanctions in the UN system and U.S. government, and effectiveness or lack thereof. Newcomb recalls the Banco Delta Asia process impeding financial transactions, reflects on the Panama interdictions, and speaks to the realities of China’s repeated blocks in more recent sanction efforts.

For more information, please visit the link below:
http://www.koreasociety.org/policy/sanctions_fact_and_sanctions_fiction.html

October 22, 2014 - South Korea ranks in the middle of the pack in nation brand rankings (#49 in FutureBrand’s Country Brand Index and #26 in the Anholt-Gfk Nation Brand Index). However, Korea’s tourism, one component of a nation’s brand ranking, has risen from 34th in 2008 to 22nd in the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s ranking of visiting tourists, with over 12 million visitors in 2013.

Holmfridur Hardardottir, General Manager of FutureBrand North America, a leading international brand and design consultancy firm, and Luis Maravi, marketing manager at Korea Tourism Organization (KTO), discuss branding, Korea’s ranking, and KTO’s plans to increase tourism to Korea. KTO’s new brand campaign, Imagine Your Korea, will also be introduced.

For more information, please visit the link below:

http://www.koreasociety.org/corporate/koreas_brand_strategy_and_tourism_growth.html

November 5, 2014 - Donald P. Gregg, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea and Chairman Emeritus of The Korea Society, discusses his fascinating new memoir, Pot Shards. The book relates experiences from a career that includes thirty-one years as a CIA operations officer and ten years in the White House, which culminated in an appointment as the National Security Advisor to then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. A reception and book signing will follow the program.

For more information, please visit the link below:

http://www.koreasociety.org/policy/ambassador_donald_p._greggs_memoir_pot_shards.html

November 7, 2014 - Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy’s Kim Koo-Korea Foundation Professor Sung-Yoon Lee addresses developments in the half-year since the release of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s historic report on human rights abuses in North Korea. Lee, who has appeared frequently in the The New York Times and on PBS, argues for an uptick in ROK and international commitment to counter rights abuses and explores the issue of accountability for Korean unification.

For more information, please visit the link below:

http://www.koreasociety.org/policy/rights_and_wrongs.html

October 15, 2014 - Author Euny Hong discusses, with The Wall Street Journal Online’s columnist Jeffrey Yang, her  first nonfiction book, The Birth of Korean Cool, which mixes stories from her childhood in Korea with in-depth reporting and exclusive interviews with government officials and cultural icons. The result is an entertaining look at how South Korea made an unprecedented leap into the 21st century to become a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture.

For more information, please visit the link below:

http://www.koreasociety.org/arts-culture/literature/euny_hong_the_birth_of_korean_cool.html

October 31, 2014 - Columbia University Senior Research Scholar Sue Mi Terry speaks about her recent Foreign Affairs article A Korea Whole and Free, which advocates a push toward Korean unification. Terry weighs reactions to the piece in Seoul, Pyongyang, and Washington and whether we are approaching an endgame on the Korean Peninsula.

For more information, please visit the link below:

http://www.koreasociety.org/policy/moving_to_a_north_korea_endgame_.html

October 20th, 2014 - Christopher R. Hill, former U.S. Ambassador to Seoul and now Dean of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, visited The Korea Society to talk about his recently published memoir, "Outpost, Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy."

October 24, 2014 - Washington-based expert Patrick Cronin discusses Northeast Asia and the political process as Washington gears up for midterm elections. He also explores policy priorities as the 2016 presidential prospects begin to weigh foreign policy. Cronin, a prolific speaker and frequent major media contributor, heads Asia security efforts at the Center for a New American Security.

For more information, please visit the link below:

http://www.koreasociety.org/policy/asia_the_midterm_elections_and_momentum_to_2016.html