Events

The following is a comprehensive listing of public events at which I have presented or panelled. 

(2018). “Talking Heads – Understanding North Korea”, Headingley Arts Centre, Leeds, June 14th.

(2018). “Facing East: War Memory in the DPRK”, Institute for Asian Studies, at University-College Cork (Ireland), February 9.

(2018). “History of Sino-North Korea relations”, in ‘This House Fears Kim’s North Korea more than Putin’s Russia’, Cambridge Union Debate, 1 February.

(2017.) Interview with Tariq Ali “about increasing tensions between the United States and the DPRK, and the immediate region including South Korea and China.”

(2017). “Chinese-North Korean Relations: Reading the Signs and Signals,” at Kyungnam University/IFES, with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 29 November. [Event information.]

(2017). “Border Security & Commerce on the Tumen River,” presentation at Sejong Institute, Seongnam, Korea, 28 November. [Event information.]

(2017). Interview for documentary film, Wildbear Entertainment, production forthcoming.

(2017). “The North Korea Nuclear Challenge,” RUSI, London, November 15. [Summary and full video of event — on the record.]

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(2017). “Chinese-North Korean Relations,” at Asia-Scotland Institute, Edinburgh, 9 November. [Event information; Chatham House Rules.]

(2017). Chair and discussant for “Strategy, Risk and Success in ‘Soft Politics’,” panel at DPRK Roundtable, an Oxford House symposium with the All Parliamentary Group on North Korea, at the House of Lords, 17 January.

(2016). “Reconstruction of East Asia, 1945-1965,” at Westminster College, Cambridge, December 9-12.

(2016). “Exploring Chinese Responses to North Korean Collapse and Catastrophe,” presented at China-North Korea Relations and The Future of the Korean Peninsula, National Diplomatic Academy Center for China Studies/ROK Foreign Ministry, Seoul, 29 September.

(2016). North Korea briefings at Foreign Office, London, July and August.

(2015). “Revolutionary Adaptation and the Moranbong Band,” at Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, November 11-12. [Conference program.]

(2015). Organizer and discussant for Hyun Ok Park, “The Capitalist Unconscious: From Korean Unification to Transnational Korea,” School of History, Leeds University, 1 October. [Event information.] [Audio recording.]

(2015). “Neighbor, Perpetrator: Sinchon and Transborder Violence in South Hwanghae Province, 1945–1950,” presentation at “Writing North Korean Social History,” School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 11 September. [Audio available later.] [Event program.] [Event website.] [Event website.]

(2015). “Exploring China’s Responses to North Korean Collapse,” Chatham House, London, 6 August. [Off the record.] [Reflections on the conference topic TBA.] [Event website.]

(2015). “Transnational Soldiers in the Sino-Korean Borderlands, 1945–1950,” Governance and Challenges in China’s Peripheries and Ecology, Leiden University, the Netherlands, 29 May. [Audio available later.] [Conference program.] [Conference program.]

(2015). “Transnational Soldiers in the Sino-Korean Borderlands, 1945–1950,” Imagining Asia: A Symposium: Silk Road, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, January 15. [Conference program.] [Conference website.]

(2014.) “Transnational Soldiers in the Sino-Korean Borderlands, 1945–1950,” Asian Borderlands Research Network, University of Hong Kong, December 8. [Paper abstract. Conference summary.]

(2014). “Is Cultural Diplomacy with North Korea Possible?” lecture at All-Parliamentary Group on North Korea, Parliament, Westminster, 19 November. [Event summary.]

(2014). “Succession Politics and Commemorative Culture in North Korea,” Korean Studies Lecture Series, SOAS-University of London, November 14.

(2014). “Toward a Transnational History of the Korean War in Manchuria, 1945–1955,” Northeast Asian History Lecture Series, University of London, Institute for Historical Research, November 13.

(2014). “The Shenyang Trials of 1956: The Resurrection of Defeat,” for presentation at Rethinking Justice? Decolonization, Cold War, and Asian War Crimes Trials after 1945, University of Heidelberg, October 28. [Conference website.] [Conference program.] [Conference abstract.]

(2014). Invited participant in roundtable discussion with North Korean Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), London, 29 September.

(2014). “Evolution or Rupture? Economic and Political Ties between China & North Korea,” briefing at Foreign Office, London 19 September. [Off the record.]

(2014). Invited participant, “A State of Non-Legitimacy: North Korean Exile Voices,” conference with Jang Jin-sung at Leiden University, 17–18 September.

(2014). “North Korean & Chinese Communist Political Art and the Captured Archives of the Korean War, 1945–1953,” presented at Cold Front: Reflections on the Chinese Cold War Experience in Comparison, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 15 September. [Conference summary.]

(2014). “Cultural Diplomacy with North Korea,” participant in invited roundtable discussions with practitioners and North Korean diplomats, British Academy & British Council, London, 14 July.

(2014). “The New Nanking Cinematic: Reflections from the Iris Chang Papers,” Sino-Japanese Relations Research Network conference, University of Leeds, 8 July.

(2014). “In the Shadow of Jang Song-Taek: Pyongyang’s Evolving SEZ Strategy along the China-North Korean Border,” lecture at Korean Economic Institute, 19 June. [Paper. Podcast/interview.] 

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(2014). “China and the Korean War,” Prince’s Teaching Institute, History Schools Away Day, Crewe, UK, 16 July 2014.

(2014.) Discussant for Rana Mitter, “Fighting Fate: Wartime Society,” Wiles Lectures, Queen’s University Belfast, 25–29 May.

(2014). “Transnational Cadre in Yanbian/Yonbyon and the Sino-Korean Border Region, 1945–1949,” Tumen River Triangle in Northeast Asia, Workshop at Cambridge University, 23 May. [Program. Conference summary.]

(2014). Invited participant in roundtable discussion with North Korean Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Chatham House, London, 15 May.

(2014). “Enemies and Allies in North Korean Art and Archives, 1948–1952: Documents from Record Group 242,” Association for Asian Studies annual meeting (in absentia), 28 March. [Paper summary.]

(2014). “China’s Role in the North Korean Human Rights Discourse,” European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea (EAHRNK), University of York, March 6. [Event information.] [Audio recording.]

(2014). “China, the U.S., and the Korean War,” Tanglin Trust and Chonghwa Schools, Singapore, February 16–17.

(2014). “China-North Korea Relations in the Kim Jong-un Era,” at University of Cambridge, 10 February.

(2014). “China-North Korea Relations in the Kim Jong-un Era,” at Institute for Korean Studies, Ohio State University, 9 January. [Video forthcoming.] [Event abstract.] [Event information.]

(2013). “The Discursive Battleground for North Korean Refugees: ‘Double Defector’ Propaganda and Emerging Sino-North Korean Frictions,” with Brian Gleason, presented at Korea-UK Forum on the Peaceful Unification of Korea, sponsored by National Unification Advisory Council & ROK Ministry of Unification, London, 9 November. [Full text in English and Korean – pdfs forthcoming.] [Unedited video recording.] [Conference website.]

(2013). “Manchukuo in the Afterlife: Postwar Trials of Japanese in Khabarovsk and Shenyang, 1949–1956,” presented at Trials for International Crimes in Asia conference, National University of Singapore, 17 October. [Event summary.]

(2013). “Redefining Sino-North Korean Relations,” presentation at British Association of Korean Studies/Chinese Studies Joint Conference, University of Nottingham, 5 September.

(2013). “European Reportage on North Korea,” European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea (EAHRNK), Senate House, University of London, London, September 3.

(2013). “China’s Evolving Relationship with North Korea,” panel presentation at International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Arundel House, London. July 9. 

(2013). “New Horizons in North Korean Studies,” presentation at Cambridge University North Korea Forum, Cambridge University. July 4.

(2013). “Online Engagement and Researchers’ Careers,” paper at Public Engagement for Postgraduates in the Arts and Humanities, conference at Durham University, 19 June.

(2013). “China Engaging North Korea in the Borderland Regions,” presentation at Engage Korea 2013, Merton College, Oxford. May 4. [Event program.]

(2013). “Violence and Retributive Justice in the Sino-Korean Border Zone, 1945–47,” presented at University College Cork (Ireland), February 15.

(2012). “Sino-North Korean relations in the Borderland Regions in the 1940s and early 1950s,” School of Oriental and African Studies, London, November 23.

(2012). “In the Protective Shade of the Sun King: North Korean Music Ensembles as Regime Core and External Representation,” Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University, November 2.

(2012). “Roundtable on Sino-Korean Borderlands” (Participant), Initiative on Northern Korea, International Institute of Asian Studies/Leiden University (Netherlands), September 20.

(2012). “Mutual Dependency and Double Collapse: Sino-North Korean Relations, 1945–50,” Center for Korean Studies, Leiden University (Netherlands), April 27.

(2012). “Sino-North Korean Borderlands, 1945–1950,” Lecture at King’s College, London (Department of History / King’s China Institute), January 13.

(2011). “Liu Shengqi in Lhasa: A New Window into Tibet and Chinese Assertions on the Plateau, 1945–1949,” research presentation for Himalayan Research Association, Macalaster College (St. Paul, Minnesota), October 30.

(2011). “U.S.-China Musical Diplomacy,” United States Consulate, Chengdu, Sichuan, PRC, July 22.

(2011). “Conference on New Media in East Asia” (Discussant), University of Hong Kong, China Media Project & David Bandurski, June 10–12.

(2010). “Against the Prompt: Encouraging a Culture of Student Research,” presentation at PLU University House, April 28.

(2010). “Dachau and Nanking: Questioning the History of Postwar War Crimes Trials in Germany and Japan,” guest presentation with Tomaz Jardim (U.S. Holocaust Museum), PLU, March 18.

(2009). “China’s 21st Century?” Speaker and panelist with Sidney Rittenberg and Bryna Goodman, Pacific Lutheran University (Tacoma, Washington), October 19.

(2008). “Japanese War Crimes” and “The Problem of North Korea” for presentations delivered as Scholar in Residence, Menorah Park Center, Beachwood, Ohio, December 15–18.

(2008). “War Memory and Chinese Nationalism: Japanese War Criminals and the Changing Needs of the CCP, 1950–1958,” Presenter and Panel Chair, Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, St. Olaf College (Northfield, Minnesota), October 22.

(2008.) “Musical Diplomacy in the Opening to China, 1971–1973,” presented at Ricci Institute, University of San Francisco, Conference on Western-Chinese Musical Exchanges, May 9.

(2008). “Nationalism and Resistance in the Sino-North Korean Border Region during the War to Resist America and Aid Korea,” presented at Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Atlanta, April 5.

(2008). “Beijing and the ‘Green Olympics’,” Mandarin-English translator for Professor Bao Maohong (Peking University), University of Washington, Jackson School for International Studies China Colloquium, Seattle, Washington, March 11.

(2007). “Comrades and War Criminals: New Files on Sino-Japanese Relations from the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archive,” presented at Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Washington University, St. Louis, October 21.

(2007). “Domestic Politics and Foreign Relations of North Korea and South Korea,” Mandarin-English translator for conference at University of North Korean Studies, Seoul (sponsored by Woodrow Wilson Center’s Cold War International History Project), May 18.

(2007). “Chinese Perspectives on the U.S. Occupation of Japan,” presented at American Historical Association Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, January 6.

(2006). “North of the Yalu: China’s Mass Mobilization for the Korean War,” presented to East Asian Studies Lecture Series, John Carroll University, November 16. 

(2006.) “The Bullets of a Defeated Nation: The Shibuya Incident of 1946,” presented at Midwest Japan Seminar and “Japan in the World” Conference in honor of James Huffman, Wittenberg University, November 11.

(2006). “Beyond Surrender: Japanese Soldiers in the Chinese Civil War,” presented at Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 21.

(2006). “Limits of the Lips and Teeth Alliance: Antinomies of Chinese-North Korean Relations,” discussant, Cornell University & Chen Jian, September 29.

(2006). “Musical Diplomacy in the Opening to China, 1971–1972,” presented at conference on Transforming the Cold War: U.S. Relations with the People’s Republic of China, 1969–1980, U.S. Department of State, September 26.

(2006). Discussant for Student Papers at 中国长春冷战国际会议学术讨论会与博士论坛会议 / International Cold War History Conference & Shen Zhihua, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China, July 14–17.

(2006). “反美扶日宣传在东北，1948年” (“Anti-Japanese Propaganda in Northeast China in 1948”), presented at International Symposium on East Asia in 21st Century: Cultural Construction and Cultural Exchange, Beijing University, China, April 19.

(2005). “Building Barriers: Icons of Ascendance and Exclusion in Early Maoist Political Cartoons, 1949–1951,” presented at International Research Conference on The Roles and Representations of Walls in the Reshaping of Chinese Modernity, University at Buffalo and Albright-Knox Galleries, Buffalo, New York, October 23.

(2005). “I Will Be the First to Lay Down My Pen for a Gun: Chinese Schoolchildren and the War with Japan,” presented at Conference on Children and War, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University, April 9.