Korean Studies Centre

Webinars coming soon...

Webinar recording - 4th Korean Studies Centre Webinar

Date: Wednesday 3 February 2021

Title: 

Current issues and roles of Australia and Korea for peaceful co-existence and cooperation in Asia Pacific Regions

Synopsis: 

In this webinar, the topic entitled “Current issues and roles of Australia and Korea for peaceful co-existence and cooperation in Asia-Pacific regions” will be discussed by two world eminent scholars, Professor Chung-in Moon, Special Advisor in Foreign Affairs and National Security to President HE Mr Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea, and Professor the Honourable Gareth Evans AC QC, Distinguished Honorary Professor, Australian National University, and former Foreign Affairs Minister. Professor Evans’s talk will be focused on “Australia-Korea relations: Strengthening middle power bonds”.

Keynote Speakers: 

Professor the Honourable Gareth Evans AC QC, Distinguished Honorary Professor, Australian National University, and former Foreign Affairs Minister

Professor the Honourable Gareth Evans AC QC was a Cabinet Minister throughout the Hawke-Keating Governments, including as Foreign Minister from 1988-96. As Foreign Minister he played central roles in the creation of APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum, the Cambodian peace process, and in bringing to conclusion the Chemical Weapon Convention. From 2000 to 2009 he was President and CEO of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, and from 2010 to 2019 served as Chancellor of the Australian National University, where he is now Distinguished Honorary Professor. He currently chairs the Seoul-based Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), and the Advisory Boards of the New-York based Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, and the ANU Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership. Previously, he co-chaired two major commissions, the International Commissions on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001) and on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (2009). He has written or edited, singly or jointly, thirteen books – including Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir (2017), Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play (2015), Inside the Hawke-Keating Government: A Cabinet Diary (2014) and The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All (2009). Gareth Evans has received a number of national and international honours, including the 2010 Roosevelt Freedom from Fear Award for his pioneering work on the Responsibility to Protect concept and his contributions to conflict prevention and resolution, arms control and disarmament. 

Professor Chung-in Moon, Special Advisor in Foreign Affairs and National Security to President HE Mr Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea

Special Advisor in Foreign Affairs and National Security to President HE Mr Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea. He is also a Distinguished University Professor of Yonsei University, Krause Distinguished Fellow, School of Policy and Global Strategy, University of California, San Diego, and Vice Chair and Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN). He is currently serving as the editor-in-chief of Global Asia. On 21 May 2017 Professor Moon was nominated by President Moon Jae-in as a special advisor on unification, diplomacy and national security affairs.”

Guests:

Professor Tim Dunne, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, UQ

Tim brings to the role 25 years of experience as researcher, educator and academic leader. His most recent appointment was Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at The University of Queensland (UQ). Tim was the first Dean of the new Faculty after its inauguration in 2014; under his leadership, the Faculty has established itself as among the very best in Australia and competitive internationally across many disciplinary areas. Prior to his four-year term as Dean, Tim was the Director of UQ’s Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect as well as Professor of International Relations in the School of Political Science (which has remained his substantive position since he joined UQ in 2010). He had previously held discipline and faculty-level leadership roles at the University of Exeter (UK). Tim began his career at Aberystwyth University in Wales, which is famous for having the oldest and one of the best departments of International Relations in the world. His graduate training was at the University of Oxford where he won a national prize for his PhD. He is recognised for his research on human rights protection and foreign policy-making in a changing world order. He has written and co-edited thirteen books, including Human Rights in World Politics (1999), Worlds in Collision (2002), and Terror in our Time (2012). Recently he has collaborated with colleagues in the School of Political Science and International Studies to produced two edited volumes: The Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect (2016) co-edited with Alex Bellamy, and The Globalization of International Society (2017) co-edited with Christian Reus-Smit – this book has received two prizes from different sections of the International Studies Association.

In 2019 he was involved in the publication of the edited classic Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics; the new edition has been put together with Ian Hall at Griffith University. Additionally, he is working with his political science colleague at UQ, Richard Devetak, on an innovative and multi-disciplinary project called ‘The Rise of the International’. Tim continues to co-teach a popular Master’s course on ‘humanitarian emergencies’. In recognition of his scholarly contribution, Tim was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia in 2016.

Mr Sangwoo Hong, Consul General of the Republic of Korea, Sydney

Consul General Sang-woo Hong is the Republic of Korea’s current Consul General for Sydney, Australia. He first joined the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs after passing his Diplomatic Service Examination in 1992 and completing his B.A in English Language and Literature at Yensei University in Seoul Korea he went on to serve in a wide variety of diplomatic postings.

His first foreign posting was to the French Republic as Second Secretary in 2000 followed by the Lao People’s Democratic Republic as First Secretary in 2003. In 2005 he became the Director of International Cooperation for the Office of Planning’s ‘Light Water Reactor Project’ after which he went on to study at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey in California. In 2008 he then took up a new position as Counsellor for the Korean Embassy to the Kingdom of Norway followed by becoming the Director of the West Europe Division for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s European Affairs Bureau in 2011. In 2012 he went on to become the DirectorGeneral for International Cooperation for the ‘Presidential Council for Future and Vision, Korea’, after which he pursued further academic study at the Sejong Institute in Korea. In 2013 he then served as the Minister-Counsellor for the Korean Embassy to the Federal Republic of Germany until 2017, when he became an Executive Member Korea’s Foreign Affairs and Security National Planning Advisory Committee. He then went on to serve as the Deputy Protocol Secretary to the Office of the President before finally being posted to his current position in Sydney, Australia. Consul General Hong was also the recipient of a Presidential Citation in 2012.

Ms Susan Lee, Vice Chairperson, The National Unification Advisory Council, The Republic of Korea

Susan Lee is an incumbent Vice-Chairperson of the National Unification Advisory Council, a South Korea’s constitutional body, which is a Presidential consultative forum set up to establish and implement policies on democratic and peaceful unification on a bipartisan and pan-national perspective. Since 2017, she has been leading the Asia Pacific Assembly of the NUAC representing the 6 chapters of Australia, New Zealand, Southwest Asia, Southern Southeast Asia, Western Southeast Asia, and Northern Southeast Asia consisting of 603 Korean community leaders around 20 nations in the region.

Before her appointment as the Head of the Asia Pacific Assembly, she served as Chairperson of the Australia chapter for 4 years. Susan Lee is an exemplary migrant businesswoman, media proprietor, bona fide philanthropist, and community leader having been acting as a prime move in liaising between the Korean communities in Australia, and the mainstream societies of Korea and Australia; and deepening and strengthening the relationship between the two sectors. She has been regarded as the most successful businesswoman in the Korean communities in Australia and most respected community leader over the past decades, as clearly proven in her remarkable career. She was the 2010 NSW Woman of the Year awarded by the NSW Government of Australia. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland since 2019.

Webinar

Date: Wednesday 20 January 2021
 

Title: 

The spread of infectious diseases in ancient East Asia with focus on the Korean Peninsula and its implications for the Covid-19 pandemic in the two Korean states 

Synopsis: 

This talk presents the results of research undertaken as part of Seoul National University Asia Center’s “Exchange and Cooperation in the Asian World” program, in which passages on infectious diseases appearing in the official historical records of ancient Korea, China, and Japan were examined. In tracing how the spread of infectious diseases accompanied exchange and conflict in the ancient East Asian world, it was also possible to identify that “fact framing” had also taken place in the past in relation to the reporting of infectious diseases. This illustrates how the past can indeed be a mirror for present times.

Speakers: 

Dr. Ilhong Ko, HK Research Professor, Seoul National University Asia Center (SNUAC), Republic of Korea. Expert in the Korean Bronze Age, Ancient Exchange and Migration, North Korea Archaeology  

Dr. Ilhong Ko is a HK Research Professor at Seoul National University Asia Center (SNUAC). She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Archaeology & Prehistory at the University of Sheffield and undertook her undergraduate studies at Seoul National University. Her research interests lie in human migration and exchange in ancient Korea, human practice and social reproduction/change, and North Korean archaeology. From 2009-2018, she participated in the Humanities Korea (HK) Project (funded by the National Research Foundation of Korea) at the Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University, where she collaborated actively with researchers of several other disciplines, such as philosophy, history, geography, and architecture, to explore the human condition and its permutations throughout time and space. In 2018 she joined Seoul National University Asia Center as a Research Fellow before becoming a HK Research Professor in 2020. Ilhong Ko currently serves as the Regional Editor for the ‘News in Northeast Asia’ section of the IIAS Newsletter, published by the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden. She is also Editor of Gogoohak (Journal of the Jungbu Archaeological Society).

Jungwon Huh (Ph.D.), Research Fellow, Asia Regional Information Center, Seoul National University Asia Center, Executive Secretary, Seoul National University COVID-19 Research Network (SNUCRN)

Jungwon Huh earned her doctorate at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. Her research covers income and gender inequality, migration, human right, data visualization and storytelling. Huh was a senior research analyst at the Office of Diversity and Engagement at the University of California, Office of the President. For her dissertation, she was awarded as the Emerging Scholar at the 14^th Annual Welfare Research and Evaluation Conference by the US Department of Health and Human Services. Her recent research revolves around female marriage migrants and their labor market experience in South Korea. Her current forthcoming article includes “Long-term family visit and Vietnamese female marriage migrants' family dynamics” and “Mapping community-level mobility changes of Koreans and immigrants using bigdata of “de facto population of Seoul” - six ethnic enclaves in Seoul under COVID-19 epidemic.”

Dr. Juyoung Jang, Policy Researcher & Director of International Partnerships, Migration Research and Training Centre, Republic of Korea. Expert in Migration Policy, Immigrant Integration, Family Immigration

Juyoung Jang is a Policy Researcher and the Director of International Partnerships at Migration Research and Training Centre, a partner organization of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, she joined the Chao Center for Asian Studies at Rice University as a Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research focuses on evaluating and developing immigration policy for immigrants’ social integration. Her current works investigate immigrants’ access to health care services in South Korea.

Dr. Isaac Lee, Co-Director, Korean Studies Centre, The University of Queensland, Australia

Dr Isaac Lee was born in South Korea. He completed his Bachelor Degree in South Korea and attained his higher degrees in Australia. Currently, he is a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland, teaching Korean language and culture. His research focuses on the critical analysis of textbooks (including Korean language textbooks) in South/North Korea, China and Japan, English textbooks in South Korea, Japan, Vietnam  and China.  He also conducted research on areas such as North Korean defectors, environmental issues in the curriculum, multicultural novels in South Korea, Korean teaching using pop culture, culture and language, and Korean drama.

Webinar recording - Wednesday 28 October 2020

Title: Under a unified flag: Korean reunification twenty years after the Sydney Olympics

The year 2000 was a time of hope for on the Korean Peninsula. In South Korea, under progressive President Kim Dae-jung, the nation was emerging from the IMF Crisis. In North Korea, the nation was starting to put the ‘Arduous March’, the famine that left millions of North Koreans dead, behind them. Green shoots began to sprout with leaders in both  countries committing solving the question of reunification. In September of the same year, North Korean and South Korean athletes marched as a unified group under a single flag in the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The time looked ripe for the reunification of the Korea's. Twenty years on, the two Korea's are still estranged and still officially at war. In this seminar we look at why reunification did not happen and we look at the chances for unification into the future.

Panellists:

Dr Jay Song is a Korea Foundation Senior Lecturer in Korean Studies and Research Coordinator for Migration, Gender and Environment at the Asia Institute of the University of Melbourne, Australia. She also serves as a Regional Editor for Korea for Asian Studies Review and member of the Editorial Board for Melbourne Asia Review.

Prior to her current position, Jay was the Director of Migration and Border Policy at the Lowy Institute (Sydney), Assistant Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University, Associate Fellow of Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs, London), Consultant for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva), and Human Rights Officer at the National Human Rights Commission of South Korea (Seoul). She also held several academic positions at the National University of Singapore and the University of Cambridge. She holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies (Cambridge, UK), LLM in Human Rights (Hong Kong), and BSc in Mathematics (Seoul, Korea). She is the author of Human Rights Discourse in North Korea: Post- colonial, Marxist and Confucian Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2010), and a number of peer-reviewed academic journal articles as well as the editor of the History of Human Rights Society: 1965-2015 (London: Routledge, 2017) and Irregular Migration and Human Security in East Asia (London: Routledge, 2014). Her current research focuses on North Korea and migration, using complexity theory.

Professor Andrei Nikolaevich Lankov is the Director of Korea Risk Group, the parent company of NK News and NK Pro.

Andrei is a Russian scholar of Asia and a specialist in Korean studies and Director of Korea Risk Group, the parent company of NK News and NK Pro. Lankov was born on July 26, 1963, in Leningrad, Soviet Union (modern day Saint Petersburg). He completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at Leningrad State University in 1986 and 1989, respectively. He also attended Pyongyang's Kim Il-sung University in 1985. Following his graduate studies, Lankov taught Korean history and language at his alma mater, and in 1992 went to South Korea for work; he moved to Australia in 1996 to take up a post at the Australian National University, and moved back to Seoul to teach at Kookmin University in 2004. Lankov has written in Russian (his native language), Korean, and English. He runs a North Korea-themed Livejournal in Russian, where he documents aspects of life in North (and South) Korea, together with his musings and links to his publications. He has written a column for the English-language daily The Korea Times for 15 years and also for Bloomberg News and Al Jazeera English.
Lankov has been a regular contributor to NK News and its premium research platform NK Pro since 2012. In May 2017, he became a Director of Korea Risk Group, the parent company of these platforms and committed to writing exclusively for the firm, outside of his academic commitments.

Professor Roland Bleiker is a Professor of International Relations, Peace Studies and Political Theory at The University of Queensland

Roland’s research explores the political role of aesthetics, visuality and emotions.  He has observed Korean politics for over three decades.  Between 1986 and 19888 he was Chief of Office of the Swiss Delegation to the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission in Panmunjom. During this time he regularly travelled back and forth between South and North Korea.  In later years he worked as an assistant professor at Pusan National University and was a research fellow to Yonsei University.  Bleiker’s books include Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics(Cambridge University Press 2000), Divided Korea: Toward a Culture of Reconciliation (University of Minnesota Press 2005/2008), Aesthetics and World Politics (Palgrave 2009/2012) and Visual Global Politics (Routledge 2018).  His most recent publication in Korea is an essay on “Visual Autoethnography and International Security: Insights from the Korean DMZ (European Journal of International Security, 2019) and is free access here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-international-security/article/visual-autoethnography-and-international-security-insights-from-the-korean-dmz/FD2FF8604DE84CCF6A5685BD53D15749

Dr Richard Murray is a Lecture and Postdoctoral Research Fellow & Research Fellow for School of Communication and Arts at The University of Queensland. He is also a journalist for AP News.

Richard's research focuses on the journalist experience at the local, national, and international levels. His most recent work investigates the role journalists play in constructing and making sense of both North Korea and South Korea in a disrupted news media environment. Dr Murray has two books forthcoming from this research.

Marketing strategist and talk show panelist in Korea

After graduating, Blair started working full time at a digital marketing agency in Seoul, South Korea.

"Working at the agency has been a really great opportunity for me. I have a natural interest in fashion, technology, and social media, so being able to work in an environment that combines all three is great", he said.

Blair juggles full-time work with weekly recordings for the popular Korean talk show Abnormal Summit. Blair is one of seven non-Korean male panellists from all around the world who appear on the show which has a viewership over 12 million.

"I think in our globalizing world, having a second language under your belt is not only beneficial economically, but also culturally. It helps you to broaden your horizons, gives you a new perspective on your own culture and country, and is one of those really tangible forms of study that you can take out and use in the everyday. Without having studied Korean, I don't think I would have come to Seoul in the first place, which is something I can't really imagine. Having the language education that I did, it's really given me so many opportunities in areas I wouldn't have looked at. The TV show, for example, is a direct result of the Korean education I received both at UQ and here in Korea."

Blair has a Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Arts (Korean) from The University of Queensland. 

Dr. PARK Chong-Soo

Academic Career

• Sogang University in South Korea (B.A. in Political Science and Diplomacy, 1984)
• University of London, The school of Slovonic and Eastern European Studies (Russian Studies, 1990)
• St. Petersburg State University in Russia (Master of Economics and Doctor of Economics, 1998)

Employment Career

•  Advisory board member of Korea-Central Asia Cooperation Forum Under South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (current)
•  Board director of  Eurasia 21 under the South Korea’s National Assembly Secretariat(current)
• Chairman(Vice Prime Minister) of the Northern Economic Cooperation Committee under the President of the Republic of Korea (Former)
•  Minister, Councillor, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Russia(Former)
•  President of the Northeast Asian Community Cultural Foundation (former)
•  Visiting professor at the St. Petersburg State University in Russia (former)
•  The first president of the Korean People's Association in St. Petersburg, Russia (former)
•  Researcher of HK Project at Korea University in South Korea (former)
•  Professor of the Department of International Trade at Jungwon University, South Korea (former)
•  Specialist member of the Northern Economic Cooperation Committee under the President of the Republic of Korea (former)
•  Professor of Public Policy Graduate School of Sogang University and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute of Modern Politics (former)

Publications

• Russia and Korea - Finding the Memory of the Lost Hundred Years (BaekEui, 2001)
•  Human Resources Development in G-20 Countries (Co-author, 2010)
•  21st Century North Korea and Russia-mythology, anecdotes, and evolution (Oreum, 2012, elected to excellent works)
•  East Asian Territorial Disputes and International Cooperation (Co-author, Didimter, 2014