The Korean peninsula exerts an outsized influence on almost every facet of the world today. South Korea has emerged as one of the largest economies in the world, whose exports include everything from advanced technologies to popular culture. North Korea remains an authoritarian regime, whose efforts to challenge its international isolation threatens to ignite a global conflict. The peninsula is thus a critical engine of the global economy and a volatile flashpoint of geopolitical tensions. It is too important to be overlooked, let alone ignored.Now in its second year, the Rethinking Korea: New Perspectives on a Critical Region speakers series continues to invite an interdisciplinary roster of scholars to offer novel perspectives on Korea while situating its complex place within global developments. We invite speakers to share their work that will not only shed light on the internal dynamics and rich history of Korea but also explore the complex relationship between this critical region and the larger world.

The inaugural lecture in this year’s series will feature Dr. Chris Suh, an Associate Professor of History and an affiliated faculty member in the East Asian Studies program at Emory University. He has won multiple awards for his research, teaching, and advocacy for Asian American students on campus. His first book, The Allure of Empire: American Encounters with Asians in the Age of Transpacific Expansion and Exclusion (Oxford University Press, 2023), received an Honorable Mention for the Stuart L. Bernath Prize for the best first book from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SAHFR). Dr. Suh's talk will be titled, "Confronting the Empire's Allure: How Anti-Colonial Movements in Korea Shaped Anti-Asian Movements in the United States".

The speakers series is made possible by the South Korea Initiative Fund, which is dedicated to helping establish an institutional commitment to Korean Studies at Northeastern, offering financial support to students studying or working in Korea, and educating the community about important issues regarding Korea in the world.