Description:
The Korean demilitarized zone might be among the most heavily guarded places on earth, but it also provides passage for thousands of defectors, spies, political emissaries, war prisoners, activists, tourists, and others testing the limits of Korean division. This book focuses on a diverse selection of inter-Korean border crossers and the citizenship they acquire based on emotional affiliation rather than constitutional delineation. Using their physical bodies and emotions as optimal frontiers, these individuals resist the state's right to draw geopolitical borders and define their national identity.
Drawing on sources that range from North Korean documentary films, museum exhibitions, and theater productions to protester perspectives and interviews with South Korean officials and activists, this volume recasts the history of Korean division and draws a much more nuanced portrait of the region's Cold War legacies. The book ultimately helps readers conceive of the DMZ as a dynamic summation of personalized experiences rather than as a fixed site of historical significance.Brief description: Suk-Young Kim is a professor of theater and East Asian studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of DMZ Crossing: Performing Emotional Citizenship Along the Korean Border (Columbia University Press, 2014) and Illusive Utopia: Theater, Film, and Everyday Performance in North Korea (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010). I chose her for her expertise in North Korea and film.
Review Quotes: In this beautifully written and richly documented study, Suk-Young Kim draws on a broad range of sources including memoirs, literature, films, personal interviews, and stage plays, astutely blending ethnography with performance studies and offering fascinating insights into the complex makeup of border crossers, ranging from defectors to tourists, prisoners of war, and politicians. DMZ Crossing is a pathbreaking work whose lively narrative and stunning originality makes it a valuable text for anyone interested in contemporary Korea.--Jun Yoo, University of Hawai'i at Manoa