Lunch talk with Jieun Baek: North Korea's Hidden Revolution

Date: 

Tuesday, April 4, 2017, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

Carr Conference Room, Rubenstein 219, 79 JFK St, Cambridge MA 02138

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Jieun Baek is a doctoral candidate in Public Policy at the University of Oxford, and authored North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground is Transforming a Closed Society (Yale University Press, 2016). At this talk, Jieun will discuss her recently published book and further discuss how students can think about and act on their interest in improving human rights in North Korea. 

Previously, Baek was a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Baek worked at Google, where, among other roles, she served as Google Ideas’ North Korea expert. 

Baek received her bachelor’s in Government and master’s degrees in Public Policy from Harvard. Her hometown is Los Angeles, California. Visit her at www.JieunBaek.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

*Lunch Provided*

About the Book:

nkbookThe story of North Korea's information underground and how it inspires people to seek better lives beyond their country’s borders

One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government’s sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea’s information underground—the network of citizens who take extraordinary risks by circulating illicit content such as foreign films, television shows, soap operas, books, and encyclopedias. By fostering an awareness of life outside North Korea and enhancing cultural knowledge, the materials these citizens disseminate are affecting the social and political consciousness of a people, as well as their everyday lives.