Harvard University Professor Ezra Vogel visits The Korea Society to discuss the monumental new political history he co-edited, The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea. South Korea was mired in poverty in 1959, yet by 1979 was gaining significant economic influence both regionally and globally. Park is credited with modernizing South Korea, but at a huge political and social cost. The state was predatory yet technocratic, reform-minded,… Read More

Ben Ryder Howe, formerly of The Paris Review and a contributor to The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and Outside, discusses his recently published memoir, My Korean Deli. Howe describes the trials and triumphs of his Korean-born wife’s decision to repay her parents' self-sacrifice by buying them a store. My Korean Deli follows the store's tumultuous life, and paints the portrait of an extremely unlikely partnership among characters from Brooklyn, Seoul,… Read More

The Korea Society presents Dong Jin Kim, author of Crusader for Korea, a biography of Dr. Homer B. Hulbert (1863-1949), a “hidden hero” of Korean independence. The publication is the culmination of years of effort by the author to secure a proper place in Korean history for the accomplishments of foreigners, such as Dr. Hulbert, who lived their lives in the service of Korea. Wednesday, April 6 Homer Hulbert: Crusader… Read More

Prof. Jin Young Choi speaks with author Kyung-sook Shin about her novel 'Please Look After Mom' March 24, 2011 Read More

In 1993, Cullen Thomas was a young man who wanted to see the world and South Korea was one of his first stops. Convicted of smuggling hashish and sentenced to 3 ½ years in Korean prison, the world he ended up seeing—one in which the Confucian customs of Korean society take on a harsh character—wasn’t the one he expected. Reading from his new memoir Brother One Cell: An American Coming… Read More