A two-week summer school program offered students an opportunity to explore North Korea’s literature, arts and propaganda. “News about North Korea often focuses on the country’s politics and military, as do programs and courses offered at the post-secondary level, but there is much to learn about its art, music and culture,” says LA&PS public policy Professor Thomas Klassen who created the program to address this gap.

“I learned a lot about North Korea in two weeks! Particularly more on topics that are not often discussed in academia such as the arts and culture. Thanks to the Summer School I have an idea of what my thesis will be for the coming semester,” shared Cece Oejallae, a double major in Media Arts and Law & Society at York University.

Students from York and around the world, including Cambridge University,  Berkeley and University of Hawaii, registered to attend this non-credit program. Among the registered participants were journalists, researchers, and artists with a deep interest in North Korean culture.

“As a Ph.D. student in the dance department, the instructors went out of their way to speak to my specific interests, and I now have research and writing ideas to move forward with,” said Deanne Kearney, Doctoral candidate in Dance Studies at York University.

Immanuel Kim, Korea Foundation and Kim-Renaud Professor at the Department of East Asian Languages and Studies at George Washington University, led the program along with Nicholas Bonner, who has been involved in the production of various documentary films on North Korea, including Crossing the Line and the feature film Comrade Kim Goes Flying.

“Documentarian Nick Bonner and Professor Immanuel Kim brought an attentive and curious group of students and professionals through the history, literature, film, and art of North Korean society while making the journey engaging and exciting. It was an invaluable two weeks,” shared Jacob Lundquist, MA candidate in English at York University.

Kim, who is the author of Laughing North Koreans: The Culture of Comedy Films and Rewriting Revolution: Women, Sexuality, and Memory in North Korean Fiction, led the first week with an introduction to key elements of North Korean culture.  The second week was led by Bonner and focused on topics such as foreign engagement with North Korean culture, films and architecture, and North Korea’s strict socialist realism theme in various art forms.

Léna Chardonnet, an exchange student from France studying at Glendon College remarked; “This experience was one of the best of my exchange year in Canada. The spirit of the Summer School was unique: to be able to exchange freely on a subject we are all passionate about has never been given to me in my academic curricula. As a student who doesn't earn much, I greatly appreciated the fact that I could access all this without having to pay tuition.” 

The summer school was presented by the Korean Office for Research and Education (KORE) at York University with funding support from the Academy of Korean Studies and York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies.