Rethinking Korea Lecture Series: Dr. Bridget Martin

The Korean peninsula exerts an outsized influence on almost every facet of the world today. South Korea has emerged as one of the largest economies in the world, whose exports include everything from advanced technologies to popular culture. North Korea remains an authoritarian regime, whose efforts to challenge its international isolation threatens to ignite a global conflict. The peninsula is thus a critical engine of the global economy and a volatile flashpoint of geopolitical tensions. It is too important to be overlooked, let alone ignored.Now in its second year, the Rethinking Korea: New Perspectives on a Critical Region speakers series continues to invite an interdisciplinary roster of scholars to offer novel perspectives on Korea while situating its complex place within global developments. We invite speakers to share their work that will not only shed light on the internal dynamics and rich history of Korea but also explore the complex relationship between this critical region and the larger world.

This lecture will feature speaker Bridget Martin. She is an urban geographer and political geographer researching the US-Korea alliance through the lenses of land, territory, terrain, and sovereignty. Her research traces the logics, techniques, laws, and ambiguities that made widespread American militarized land dispossessions possible during the US military occupation of southern Korea and during the Korean War, and it critically examines the more recent process of US military land returns in the context of Korea’s highly commodified real estate environment. Her teaching interests are in Human Geography, Critical Security Studies, International/Development Studies, Political Ecology, Asian/American Studies, and Korean Studies. Students interested in working with Bridget should contact her directly. Bridget’s writings have appeared in journals such as the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Political Geography.

The speakers series is made possible by the South Korea Initiative Fund, which is dedicated to helping establish an institutional commitment to Korean Studies at Northeastern, offering financial support to students studying or working in Korea, and educating the community about important issues regarding Korea in the world.

Host or Publisher Northeastern University Asian Studies Program