Art… Notes on the Music Scene in Pyongyang 26 Mar 2016 I was in North Korea for several days in the middle of March 2016. While my main purpose was to visit the Sinchon Massacre Museum for a Korean War research…
Art… The Moranbong Band and Regime Consolidation in the DPRK 9 Dec 20159 Dec 2015 Today, media in Beijing announced that the Moranbong Band, the all-female ensemble associated closely with Kim Jong-un, will be travelling to China for five days of performances. An academic paper…
Music… On the disbandment of the DPRK’s Unhasu Orchestra and the reported death of several of its members 6 Jun 2015 With respect to the matter of the Unhasu Orchestra “executions” which has been bubbling about since late August 2013, augmented by JoongAng Ilbo reports of “stadium executions” in Wonsan in…
Cultural Politics… Contentious Politics on the Korean Peninsula: Workshop at the University of Toronto 28 Feb 201528 Feb 2015 In 2013-14, I was awarded a research grant by the Academy of Korean Studies for which I was the principle investigator, and was joined by two colleagues from the Sino-NK research…
Uncategorized Kim Ki-nam and North Korea’s Orchestral Politics 3 Jun 20149 Jun 2014 Kim Jong Eun commands attention for obvious reasons. His charismatic heft, however, also manages to obscure a number of the other personalities at the apex of North Korean politics who…
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…
Adam Cathcart 