Dear Members and Friends of RAS Korea,

Here’s your quick overview of what is happening around RAS Korea this week.

1) RAS Korea Lecture (Jan. 26 – next week)
Topic: Years of Living Dangerously: The Diary of 1636 and the Manchu Invasions of Korea
Speaker: George Kallander
Date: Tuesday, January 26. 7:30PM (Seoul)

2) Korea’s YouTube channel – Online Lecture Video Archive
If you missed any online lectures, you can find and watch them here.
Please click ‘Subscribe’ and ‘Like’ buttons at the RAS Korea’s YouTube channel.

3) RAS Korea Book Note: ‘Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea’
by David Straub (Author), 2015, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center,
available in Amazon

If you ask Koreans about America, most will tell you that the US is a valuable ally, but there is a streak of anti-Americanism that runs through the society that pops up from time to time. Author David Straub, who served for three years in the political section of the United States Embassy to South Korea, traces this wave of anti-American feeling in his book Anti-Americanism in Democratizing South Korea.  The book looks at the rise in anti-Americanism from 1999 to 2002, when many Koreans took to the streets in massive protests against the US.  Events covered in the book include the Nogun-ri Massacre, the Apollo Ohno Short-track Speed Skating incident, and the Yangju Highway incident, which sparked nationwide anti-American protests in 2002.  Mr. Straub presents case studies of these events and argues that Korea’s anti-American reaction is part of a narrative of Korean victimization by the Great Powers, a reaction that has come close to undermining the U.S.-R.O.K.

4) The Korea Society Live Webcast (Jan. 22-24)
Topic: House of Hummingbird: Streaming and A Director’s Talk
Date for Free Streaming: January 22-24
Date for Talk: Sunday, January 24. 6:00PM (New York) / Monday, January 25. 8:00AM (Seoul)
Please register here to receive the viewing link. 

5) GW Institute for Korean Studies: Soh Jaipil Lecture Series (Jan. 25 – next week)
Topic: ‘Dictator’s Modernity Dilemma: Development and Democracy in South Korea, 1961-1987’ by Joan Cho
Date: Monday, January 25, 2:00PM (ET) / Tuesday, January 26. 4:00AM (Seoul)
Register by clicking here.

Very best wishes.
Stay safe and healthy.