Dr. Elli Kim, (Library of Congress), “North Korean Advertising in the 1950s-1960s: Bargaining Socialist Modernity between State and Citizens”
Date: Nov. 1, 1:30-3:00 PM
Location: Rutgers Academic Building, WW, Seminar Room 6051, 15 Seminary Place, New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Does North Korea’s recent commercial advertising blast signal its detour to the market economy, as most academics and experts speculate? Contrary to conventional views, North Korea has promoted advertising as a part of the socialist economy like other socialist countries since its establishment. This talk highlights North Korean advertising as a constitutive part of the public discursive sphere, where the idea of “bargaining” and “branding” shaped what it meant to be a socialist state and citizen. Analyzing North Korean advertorials published in regional newspapers and journals in the 1950s-60s, the talk addresses how daily consumer activities clarified the role and responsibility of the socialist state and its citizens. The state legitimated its authority by supplying daily consumer goods and quality services to prove the superiority of socialist modernity; at the same time, citizen-buyers responded to state-owned products and services with various bargaining chips in the forms of praise, criticism, or access to informal markets. Demystifying the stark dichotomy between socialist and capitalist economic systems, the talk illustrates socialist embodiment of political subjectivity through everyday consumer activities.
Speaker Bio:
Dr. Elli Kim is the Korean reference librarian with the Asia Division at the Library of Congress. She holds a PhD in modern Korean history from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and has previously taught at the University of Southern California (USC) and Ramapo College of New Jersey. Her book manuscript in preparation is entitled “Inner-Migrant Intellectuals of the Cold War: North Korea in the Socialist Landscape of the 1950s-1960s.”
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Sponsored by Asian Languages and Cultures
Co-sponsored by Global Asias