Moon Family Distinguished Lectures
Thursday, November 12, 2020 - 5:00pm

Ha-Joon Chang

University of Cambridge

Via Zoom
 
 

*Registration required, please register via the following link: https://upenn.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvfuqppj0tEtSmf56a25fXRBLWajr4Fmho
 
In this talk, Ha-Joon Chang will use the first ever non-English-language winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, Parasite, by Bong Joon-ho, in order to analyse the political economy of inequality in today’s South Korea. Behind the socio-economic ills depicted in the movie, Chang will argue, lies the history of Korea over the last two generations that first created a relatively equal society with high social mobility and optimism for the future and then an increasingly unequal society with falling social mobility and despair and hopelessness for many. Particular attention will be paid to the interactions between the economic structure, the regulatory regime, the welfare state, and the education system that have generated the uniquely Korean dynamic of inequality and conflicts that is so brilliantly portrayed in Parasite.
 
This inaugural lecture is made possible by the generous support of the Moon family
 
For links to publications by Dr. Chang at Penn Libraries, please see https://guides.library.upenn.edu/c.php?g=476010&p=3255561