Pyongyang, Through a Back Alley, Sideways: A talk with Lisa Min, Seoul National University

On Monday, September 29, the Center for East Asia Studies will host Dr. Min, for a talk on “Pyongyang, Through a Back Alley.” The event will take place in WCH 4.118 Meyerson Conference Room.

How does one get to a Pyongyang that is not “frozen in time”?  North Korea is often described as a place where time is moving backwards, a place experiencing time lag, left behind like a remnant of an era past. Which is perhaps another way to frame its imminent collapse, or to contend that it is only a matter of time until this will all come to an end, at last bringing North Korea into the present. An outcome of this pastness put upon North Korea is that all of the images coming out of the country begin to take on a certain retro sheen. This teleological horizon of time, what Walter Benjamin called “a storm,” renders North Korea out of sync, evacuating politics, the social, and life from holding meaning or potency. This does something to the way we see. And the images, well, they become fodder, Socialist “déjà vu,” kitschy reminders of times past. To take the direct path there would be to arrive at a place we already know. In order to get beyond the infinite loop of time travel to the past, this essay seeks another passage to Pyongyang, through a back alley, sideways, with the aim of getting to another present. 

Lisa Min’s work examines the relationship between visuality and politics in and out of North Korea. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently affiliated with Seoul National University’s Institute of Cross-Cultural Studies.