In search of national unity and bureaucratic order after the Korean War, the North Korean state turned to labor. Even more than coercion or violence, work was crucial to state control. Industrial labor was both mode of production and mode of governance, characterized by repetitive work, mass mobilization, labor heroes, and the insistence on convergence between living and working. At the same time, workers challenged and reconfigured state power to accommodate their circumstances—coming late to work, switching jobs, and fighting with bosses, as well as following approved paths to secure their livelihood, resolve conflict, and find happiness. Here, everyday life is a complex field of agency and subjugation, where actions stemming from choice and conviction can be simultaneously the practices that follow the intent of the party-state. In this talk, we explore various work situations, from the shop floor at a machine factory to nation-wide campaigns such as the Chollima Work Team Movement. In addition, urbanization is examined to understand how the built-environment is connected to local and global ideologies. Memory politics is another area of postwar everyday life, and we explore how public memory is reconstituted in the historical context of nationalism and surplus accumulation. The story of postwar North Korea is at once unique and universal in the global history of modern nation-building.

About the speaker:

Harrison Cheehyung Kim is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research and teaching focus on socialism, labor, industrialism, everyday life, and urbanism in the context of East Asia and North Korea. He is the author of Heroes and Toilers: Work as Life in Postwar North Korea, 1953–1961 (Columbia University Press) and serves as editor of the journal Korean Studies: Global Research and Critique.

Language:

English

Time & Location

Monday, 1 June 2026, 14:00

-1.2009 großer Hörsaal, UG (Fabeckstr. 23/25)

Online participation is available. Please register via the email address: Hojye.kang [at] fu-berlin.de

About the Eurasian Foundation lecture series:

This lecture series is organized by Dr. Hojye Kang and offered within the seminar “Bridging Histories, Forging Futures: Lessons from 150 Years of German-Korean Dialogue for the Eurasia Community,” supported by the Eurasia Foundation (https://www.eurasia.or.jp/). It is an annual program that brings together international experts on Korea’s traditional era, the colonial period, contemporary South and North Korea, and international relations. Each lecture presents key research alongside accessible insights into methodologies, primary sources, and conceptual frameworks, offering a structured perspective on the Korean Peninsula in its broader Eurasian context. The series is open to students and all interested audiences.

Upcoming Lectures:

• Mon, 8 June: “Building Bridges: How the Korean Diaspora in Hungary Connects the Eurasia Community — A North Korean Medical Student as a Case of Korean Diaspora” by Bogook Kim (National Archives of Hungary)
• Mon, 15 June: “North Korea in the Eurasia Community: Rationality, Technological Governance, and Economic Transformation” by Benoît Berthelier (The University of Sydney, Australia)
• Mon, 22 June: “Colonial-Era Korean Socialism: Critiques of the Present and Visions for the Future of Eurasia Communities” by Vladimir Tikhonov (University of Oslo, Norway)
• Mon, 29 June: “Donghak as the Origin of K-Democracy: Toward the Spread and Establishment of Democracy in the Eurasia Community” by Byung-Sul Jung (Seoul National University, Korea)
• Mon, 6 July: “Looking toward the Europe–Asia Community: One World” by Sato Yoji (Chairman of the Eurasia Foundation, Japan)
• Sat, 11 July: “The Culture of Mathematical Science in Korea and the Eurasia Community” by Jongtae Lim (Seoul National University, Korea)