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Translations and Work Habits
I was pleased to find a volunteer had translated my Atlantic essay on the Unhasu Orchestra’s trip to Paris, and into Chinese, no less! Also, this is a fine essay on great writers and their work habits.
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Beyond the Korean War
I’m pleased to have been named a member of Professor Heonik Kwon‘s excellent project, Beyond the Korean War.
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China’s Soft Power Strategy and the DPRK
Is North Korea, as Joseph Nye once apparently argued, “immune” from soft power and persuasion? In a recent North Korea Review article, Steven Denney and I argue that the DRPK is not. Recent events in...
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Assessing Chinese-North Korean Relations: Presentation at Ohio State University
On 9 January, I was fortunate to be able to address a group of scholars and graduate students at Ohio State University. Video of the talk will be available soon, and the abstract for the paper can be...
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New Scholarship on China’s War Against Japan: Rana Mitter and the Wiles...
Rana Mitter is among the most dynamic, productive, and visible historians working on East Asia in the UK today. Dr. Mitter will be delivering a series of uniquely prestigious and endowed lectures in...
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Kunming, Lhasa, Chengdu, Berlin: Sources on Tibetan 20th Century History
Now that the minzu (ethnicity) question is so centrally on the table in China, it is a good time to be looking to the past, for roots of current disputes and opportunities to overcome that multifarious...
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Mao Zedong on “What to Praise, What to Condemn” (1951)
In the six volumes of Mao Zedong Nianpu (1949-1976) published in Beijing this past December 2013, a number of new texts can be located, and minor mysteries solved. Chronologically organized, the...
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Kim Ki-nam and North Korea’s Orchestral Politics
Kim Jong Eun commands attention for obvious reasons. His charismatic heft, however, also manages to obscure a number of the other personalities at the apex of North Korean politics who arguably do more...
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Americans in Pyongyang: Detainees, Prisoners, Hostages, and Pawns
An exquisitely rendered photograph of an American apology to the DPRK from 1968 and the USS Pueblo Incident, part of a new exhibition in Pyongyang intended to glorify the “Songun leadership” of the...
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North Korea has upped its game in the propaganda war
This essay was originally published at The Conversation on 19 December 2014, and is reprinted with permission. The release of The Interview, an American comedy depicting the death of North Korea’s Kim...
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Othello in Pyongyang: Reading North Korea in the German Archives, circa...
The relationship between East Germany and North Korea was not simply a curiosity of the Cold War; it was a relationship with tangible results, interactions, and ideals. Here are some of the more...
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Recent Work on Sino-North Korean Relations, History, and Chinese Foreign Policy
The arbitrarily configured 70th anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party, and the presence of a high-level Chinese delegation in Pyongyang, created a need for some commentary and context. This post...
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Full Comment on the Latest American Detention in Pyongyang
I was interviewed for a story in TIME magazine [full citation: Charlie Campbell, “The Detention of a U.S. Student in North Korea Underscores the Risks of Travelling There,” TIME Asia, 25 January 2016]....
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Recent Media Commentary on North Korea, and Chinese-North Korean Relations
With the apparent breakdown of Chinese-North Korean cultural diplomacy in December, North Korea’s testing of a purported hydrogen bomb in January, and a missile test and sanctions debate in February,...
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Notes on the Music Scene in Pyongyang
I was in North Korea for several days in the middle of March 2016. While my main purpose was to visit the Sinchon Massacre Museum for a Korean War research project in which I am engaged, I was also...
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China and the North Korean Workers’ Party Congress
The following is the full text of an interview I recently gave, excerpts from which will be appearing in Liberation, the quintessential Parisian daily. Q. Do we expect any senior CCP official from...
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Wartime History and Beijing’s Response to the New Defence Minister in Tokyo
In the wake of the Upper House elections in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has completed a reshuffling of his cabinet. As described by Japan hand Michael Cucek, it was not a particularly inspiring...
View ArticleEvaded States: Security and Control in the Sino-North Korean Border Region
Adam Cathcart, “Evaded States: Security and Control in the Sino-North Korean Border Region,” in Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, Alexander Horstmann, Martin Saxer, Alessandro Rippa, eds.,...
View ArticleNew Fragments from Mao in the Cultural Revolution
In December 2013, scholars of the history of the PRC were given a shot in the arm via the publication of Mao Zedong Nianpu, 1949-1976, consisting of six volumes of previously obscure materials from the...
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