New Books in Korean Studies

By: New Books Network
  • Summary

  • Interviews with Authors about their New Books in Korean Studies Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/korean-studies
    New Books Network
    Show more Show less
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2
Episodes
  • Timothy Gitzen, "Banal Security: Queer Korea in the Time of Viruses" (Helsinki UP, 2023)
    Dec 13 2024
    For more than 70 years, South Korea has woven the threat of North Korea into daily life. But now that threat has become mundane, and South Korean national security addresses family, public health, and national unity. Banal Security: Queer Korea in the Time of Viruses (Helsinki University Press, 2023) illustrates how as a result, queer Koreans are seen to represent a viral threat to national security. Taking readers from police stations and the Constitutional Court to queer activist offices and pride festivals, Timothy Gitzen shows how security weaves through daily life and diffuses the queer threat, in a context where queer Koreans are treated as viral carriers, disruptions to public order, and threats to family and culture. Timothy Gitzen is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Wake Forest University. Qing Shen recently obtained his PhD in anthropology from Uppsala University, Sweden. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/korean-studies
    Show more Show less
    58 mins
  • Tristan A. Volpe, "Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology" (Oxford UP, 2023)
    Dec 8 2024
    Over the last seven decades, some states successfully leveraged the threat of acquiring atomic weapons to compel concessions from superpowers. For many others, however, this coercive gambit failed to work. When does nuclear latency--the technical capacity to build the bomb--enable states to pursue effective coercion? In Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology (Oxford UP, 2023), Tristan A. Volpe argues that having greater capacity to build weaponry doesn't translate to greater coercive advantage. Volpe finds that there is a trade-off between threatening proliferation and promising nuclear restraint. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation but not so much that it becomes too difficult for them to offer nonproliferation assurances. The boundaries of this sweet spot align with the capacity to produce the fissile material at the heart of an atomic weapon. To test this argument, Volpe includes comparative case studies of four countries that leveraged latency against superpowers: Japan, West Germany, North Korea, and Iran. Volpe identifies a generalizable mechanism--the threat-assurance trade-off--that explains why more power often makes compellence less likely to work. Volpe proposes a framework that illuminates how technology shapes broader bargaining dynamics and helps to refine policy options for inhibiting the spread of nuclear weapons. As nuclear technology continues to cast a shadow over the global landscape, Leveraging Latency systematically assesses its coercive utility. Our guest today is Tristan Volpe, an Assistant Professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/korean-studies
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 12 mins
  • Russell Thomas, "Tofu: A Culinary History" (Reaktion Books, 2024)
    Dec 4 2024
    To the untrained eye there’s nothing as unexciting as tofu, normally regarded as a tasteless, beige, congealed mass of crushed, boiled soybeans. However, tofu more than stands up on its own. Reviled for decades as a vegetarian oddity, the brave, wobbly block has made a comeback. Tofu: a Culinary History (Reaktion, 2024) by Russell Thomas is a global history of bean curd stretches from ancient creation myths and tomb paintings, via Chinese poetry and Japanese Buddhist cuisine, to deportations in Soviet Russia and struggles for power on the African continent. It describes the potentially non-Chinese roots of tofu, its myriad types, why ‘eating tofu’ is an insult in Cantonese, and its environmental impact today. Warning: this book actually makes tofu exciting. It’s anything but bland. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/korean-studies
    Show more Show less
    52 mins

What listeners say about New Books in Korean Studies

Average customer ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.