In this minisode, we compare literary representations of Korean women navigating very different social systems. In Friend, the 1988 novel by North Korean writer Paek Nam-Nyong, Judge Jeong Jin-wu attempts to save the marriage of a famous woman singer, Chae Sun-hee, who came to him requesting a divorce from her husband. In the process of Judge Jeong’s investigation, we catch rare and meaningful glimpses of daily life and relationships in North Korea. On the other side of the demilitarized zone author Cho Nam-Joo introduces us to the life of Kim Jiyoung, a South Korean woman struggling with her mental health as a housewife and mother. Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 takes us through Jiyoung’s childhood, adolescence, and early adult life as she navigates South Korean sexism against women.
This is a guest episode from The Channel, a podcast of the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS) at Leiden University. This episode features a lecture from Simanti Dasgupta. Simanti is Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the International Studies Program at the University of Dayton, USA. Her work broadly explores the politics of citizenship and belonging in neoliberal and postcolonial nation-states. In 2021-2022, Simanti was a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Prophylactic Rights: Sex Work, HIV/AIDS and Anti-Trafficking in Sonagachi, India.
We're talking about Chinese TV-viewing habits in this mini episode about the Simpsons in China and bullet subtitles. Did you know that the Simpsons, often considered a quintessentially American television show, is popular in China? And have you ever heard of "bullet subtitles" (danmu), a live-chat function on many Chinese streaming websites? We discuss all this and more!
Our first episode features a discussion of Chai Jing's documentary Under the Dome, about the pollution crisis in China. We also talk about Chai Jing's career, censorship, and how we dealt with air pollution when we lived in China