East Asia Program presents: Charles K. Armstrong - Postmodern Pyongyang: North Korea's Trasnformations through its Changing Built Environment

Charles K. Armstrong, Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences, History Department, Columbia University

North Korea's urban landscape has evolved in numerous ways over the last several decades, especially in recent years when creeping marketization has created new spaces of consumption, distribution and social interaction. North Korea's transformations are parallel to those of former socialist countries of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, with which North Korea has maintained close connections throughout the regime's existence. The trend in Pyongyang’s built environment since 1989 can be characterized as "socialist postmodernism," still dictated by the directives of the central state yet surprisingly resonant with both Western postmodernism and post-socialist trends in the former Soviet Union and China.

Professor Armstrong’s teaching and research interests include modern Korean history, East Asian international history, US-East Asian relations and world history. He is the author, editor or co-editor of several books, including The Koreas; Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950–1992; Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia; Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy and the State; and The North Korean Revolution, 1945–1950.

For information on accessibility, or to request accommodation, please contact Oana Zabava at (315) 443-9248 or oazabava@syr.edu

Sponsored by the East Asia Program at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs