Telos 184 (Fall 2018), a special issue on Korea, edited by Haerin Shin, is now available for purchase in our store.
While Korea’s history as a modern nation-state has always been a tumultuous reel of socio-political unrest, never has it drawn the globe’s attention to the degree and extent to which the press coverage of the past two years attests. South Korea’s candlelight demonstrations in the fall of 2016 were widely regarded as a newly arisen form of celebratory civil protest culture, and news of the progressive party’s subsequent rise to power stood out amid the global turn toward conservative politics. Meanwhile, with North Korea’s nuclear threat becoming a palpable reality, media outlets began clamoring with predictions of a major military outbreak across the Pacific. (I remember being inundated by concerned emails from acquaintances abroad during my breaks in South Korea last year.) Then came the dramatic shift toward prospects of denuclearization and North–South collaboration this past summer. Millions watched in awe as Kim Jong Un took President Moon’s hand and walked over the Military Demarcation Line. The meeting in Singapore was viewed with skepticism in the United States, but more pertinently such attempts to reestablish channels of communication were greeted warmly in South Korea.
