Cultural Politics… Notes on North Korean Musical Exchanges and Internal Narratives 30 Mar 20186 Apr 2018 A lot of people seem to be interested in North Korean cultural diplomacy these days, so the (often peer-reviewed/probably badly flawed/usually enormously fun) work which I have been doing on…
Art… Researching the Moranbong Band: An Abstract 30 May 2014 Even before Kim Jong-il's tremulously-announced death in Dec. 2011, the North Korean musical-cultural apparatus-elite-complex was in valedictory mode, producing huge orchestral canatas that expressed a perfect --and complete-- vision of…
Art… Blockages and Breakthroughts: Cultural Diplomacy and North Korea 23 Feb 2012 [A cross-post of an essay which I posted on SinoNK.com. -- AC] Yesterday, Corée_Actualités launched a short missive which functioned as a kind of bouleversement of the normal: a 90-member delegation of the DPRK's…
Hip-hop Shufflin’ Over the DMZ 21 Sep 2011 Sometimes it is good just to just slip into the big unifying stream of the zeitgeist and leave the big gnarly hopes to be expressed by others, even if the…
Cello… Edward Said as Prose Stylist 19 Jul 20115 Mar 2016 I recently was confronted with the absolute revelation of the parallel career of Edward Said, comparative literature professor at New York University and famous analyst of the Arab world, as…
China… Melodious Plateau: Politics and Song at Losar (The Tibetan New Year) 19 Mar 201119 Mar 2011 [This is a guest post by Kristiana Henderson of Pacific Lutheran University, based upon research begun in Tibet in October 2010 and continued for the duration of that fall in…
Art… ‘Succession is the Issue’: Rap Ditty on the Kim Clan and Sino-North Korean Relations 18 Feb 201128 Feb 2011 If you want footnotes or typed lyrics, then they shall be produced. Otherwise, enjoy this little ditty, which began in the pre-dawn with a civilized train ride and a consequent…
Hip-hop… Smartphone Border Run Shamaness North Korea Remittance China Friendly Kim’s New Family KCNA Pastiche 12 Feb 2011 KCNA, the North Korean "news" agency, has a fascinating piece on problems caused by smartphones in US prisons (thus simultaneously bashing America and reminding readers that mobile technology is potentially…
American Foreign Policy… North Korea Notes 21 Jan 201121 Jan 2011 The Hu-Obama Summit has already been subjected to some of the most intense lobbying pressures known to man. From big business to human rights groups to the defense hawks in…
EU-East Asia relations… CCP Rewards North Korean Peace Offensive with Good Press / Note on EU Sanctions 14 Jan 20107 Jan 2013 Occasionally Xinhua relays a very halcyon story about North Korea in the Chinese press, hearkening back in tone to the 1950s, when all was well in the Sino-North Korean relationship. …
Adam Cathcart 