Andre Schmid - "Is there a North Korean History without Kim Il Sung?"

Andre Schmid, Associate Professor & Chair, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto

Why do our histories of North Korea obsessively focus on Kim Il Sung? One ironic effect of the North Korean personality cult, this presentation suggests, is that English language studies have a tendency to reproduce key features of North Korean propaganda within their own analytical framework.  However critical, dismissive, or mocking of the personality cult, our histories tend to put Kim Il Sung in the center of our narratives, as if all history can explained by being traced back to this single person – an account that is not unlike the hagiographies coming out of Pyongyang. This presentation considers instead how a gendered socio-cultural history might offer alternatives in understanding the postwar formation of the North Korean state. In so doing, it discusses decisions by people to move to the cities despite state prohibitions, the political-economic problems presented by "unhappy housewives," and the ambivalent politics of consumption.