Youngsun Jeon, a HK Research Professor at Konkuk University, examines the reality and agenda of North Korea’s rural development. By analyzing A New Spring in the Paekhak Plain (2025), North Korea’s first ever contemporary television drama, Jeon identifies North Korea’s internal struggle against corruption and the people’s loss of faith in p...

Seunghee Ha, a Research Professor at the Institute of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University, analyzes the implications of the Lee Jae Myung administration’s deregulation of contact between South and North Korean residents. The abolition of the de facto permit system is likely to revitalize civilian exchanges, contributing to trust and coexis...

Seunghee Ha, Research Professor at Dongguk University, contends that the culture of lyrical parody among North Korean residents functions as a form of cultural praxis that dismantles the symbolic language of state propaganda and confronts lived reality. Professor Ha argues that the emotions and creativity expressed through these adaptations embody ...

Young-seon Jeon, Professor of Konkuk University, argues that North Korea’s leadership perceives the younger generation, defined by attenuated loyalty and a faint sense of revolutionary consciousness, as a serious threat to regime stability. In response, the Kim Jong Un regime has elevated ideological and cultural indoctrination targeting youth as...

Seunghee Ha, a research professor at Dongguk University, asserts that despite North Korea's efforts to develop AI to a level that could replace human intelligence, its human-centered ideology prevents it from being utilized beyond an auxiliary tool. While pointing out that South Korea is currently the only country in the international community blo...

Although South Korean and North Korean comedies both originated from theatrical features of the Japanese colonial era, the two comedies have diverged into distinct forms of art after the Korean War. In this Special Report, Young Jeong Park, Adjunct Professor at the University of North Korean Studies, compares and contrasts comedies of the two Korea...

Initially imported from Japan, the concept of naturalism has had a complex history on the war-torn terrain of the Korean peninsula. In this Special Report, Kab-Woo Koo, Professor at the University of North Korean Studies, discusses the different ways in which South and North Korean governments and literary circles received the literary concept of n...

Following its appearance in a sensational series of tourism promotion videos, Leenalchi Band caught the eyes of the global audience. Well-known for its song “Tiger is Coming,” the band’s music fuses pansori with pop sounds – a rare combination of genres. In this commentary, Su-hyun Kim, Research Professor at Dankook University Acad...

The rapid influx of North Korean defectors since the mid-1990s has called for an urgent need to develop policies from the perspective of social integration. In this commentary, Sung Jae Park, Head of Financial Project Assessment Team at the Center for Employment Impact Assessment, Korea Labor Institute, raises the importance of the development of p...

Street snaps of the streets of Seoul and Pyongyang show that clothing styles among South Koreans and North Koreans are drastically different. In this Research Review, Hyun-Sook Choy, Honorary Professor and Former Dean of the Graduate School of Fashion at Dongduk Women’s University explains the trajectory in which fashion in North Korea has change...