<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><BODY BGCOLOR="#ffffff"><FONT BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SERIF" FACE="Times New Roman" LANG="0">Dear Frank, and all,<BR>
<BR>
Your big frown of disapproval is unmistakable.<BR>
But your precise reasons for this are less obvious.<BR>
Might you kindly elaborate? <BR>
<BR>
A. As I read it, you could be saying any (or several) <BR>
of the following:<BR>
<BR>
Accusations that North Korea engages in espionage,<BR>
terrorist bombings, and other bad things, are:<BR>
<BR>
1. False; or exaggerated; or no longer true.<BR>
2. So well known as to be not worth discussing.<BR>
3. Impolite or impolitic to highlight, even if true;<BR>
because this may perpetuate hostile attitudes and<BR>
so prevent the Koreas from making peace.<BR>
4. Bad pedagogy, for a teacher. (But why, exactly?<BR>
What, instead, would you regard as "good questions"?)<BR>
5. Somehow morally bad to repeatedly dwell upon,<BR>
(the curious porn analogy).<BR>
6. Stereotyped; intellectually stale, unchallenging.<BR>
7. Made by people whose company one does not<BR>
want to keep (eg Bush, neocons, ROK cold-warriors)<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
B. On shelf shopping, Bo Diddley's wise words spring to mind.<BR>
You really can't judge a book by looking at the cover.<BR>
<BR>
1. We live under capitalism. Books are commodities. Cover and<BR>
title in particular are designed to grab you; to win readers.<BR>
Like newspaper headlines, these are often not of the author's choosing.<BR>
Thus I don't think Gavan Mccormack chose to call his excellent book<BR>
<I>Target North Korea. </I>Blame the publishers for this.<BR>
<BR>
2. Ergo, title and cover may be misleading as to both the nature,<BR>
scope and quality of what lies within. You're surely not seriously <BR>
suggesting that it suffices to read with "one eye closed", "from a <BR>
secure distance" - and dismiss a whole literature a priori, unread?<BR>
<BR>
3. As one of the few in the North Korea field who has <U>not</U> written<BR>
a book recently, I must spring to the defence of my colleagues.<BR>
All hail Kim Jong-il's nuclear defiance! - which has created a<BR>
market for at least two or three dozen new books on the DPRK<BR>
in English in the past three years, which might otherwise have had<BR>
difficulty finding a publisher and readers.<BR>
<BR>
Frank's dismissiveness of these riches is unfair, and unwarranted.<BR>
Regardless of title, almost all these books are useful. Some, like<BR>
Bradley Martin's, are exceptionally good. I can think of only one<BR>
really bad one, which (sadly) is Jasper Becker's <I>Rogue Regime.</I><BR>
<BR>
4. If Frank objects to terms like "fatherly leader", surely he should<BR>
address his complaint to Pyongyang. Brad and others are only using<BR>
and reporting the DPRK's own official discourse and terminology.<BR>
If this sound ludicrous to our ears, whose fault or problem is that?<BR>
<BR>
best wishes<BR>
Aidan<BR>
<BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SERIF" FACE="Times New Roman" LANG="0">AIDAN FOSTER-CARTER<BR>
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Sociology & Modern Korea, Leeds University <BR>
Home address: 17 Birklands Road, Shipley, West Yorkshire, BD18 3BY, UK <BR>
tel: +44(0) 1274 588586 (alt) +44(0) 1264 737634 mobile: +44(0) 7970 741307 <BR>
fax: +44(0) 1274 773663 ISDN: +44(0) 1274 589280<BR>
Email: afostercarter@aol.com (alt) afostercarter@yahoo.com website: www.aidanfc.net<BR>
[Please use @aol; but if any problems, please try @yahoo too - and let me know, so I can chide AOL]<BR>
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____________<BR>
<BR>
In a message dated 24/03/2006 06:10:47 GMT Standard Time, frank@koreaweb.ws writes:<BR>
<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Subj:<B>Re: [KS] spies and thrillers </B><BR>
Date:24/03/2006 06:10:47 GMT Standard Time<BR>
From:<A HREF="mailto:frank@koreaweb.ws">frank@koreaweb.ws</A><BR>
Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws</A><BR>
To:<A HREF="mailto:Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws">Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws</A><BR>
<I>Sent from the Internet </I><BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Fatherly leaders and good articles about carnages -- hmmmm...<BR>
With all due respect, are you planning to teach a Korean film class <BR>
like a history class with documentary visual material, including <BR>
North Korea related spy movies from the South? I would find this a <BR>
problematic approach that likely leads to the usual answers that <BR>
anyone here is able to anticipate and that might hinder students to <BR>
develop good questions; and I even find your request to the list <BR>
confusing. We all know the situation as regards to such kind of <BR>
information and what is involved politically. The reply you got was <BR>
to be anticipated.<BR>
<BR>
--QUOTE--<BR>
>"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader" by<BR>
>Bradley K. Martin is a recent book that often offers<BR>
>quite deep examination of this subject (...)."<BR>
---------<BR>
<BR>
On TV, I remember, an interviewee was asked about watching porn <BR>
strips. His short and cute reply: "Well, you've seen one, you've seen <BR>
them all -- why bother?" Recently doing some window (shelve) shopping <BR>
in bookstores that very sentence came to mind when gazing at the <BR>
KOREA section, from a secure distance, one eye closed. Why are there <BR>
20 books on North Korea all with the same stale and totally unsexy <BR>
joke as title? Are these all funded by the same known source, edited <BR>
by the same editor, published by the same .... or is there only one <BR>
reader?<BR>
<BR>
Frank<BR>
<BR>
-- <BR>
--------------------------------------<BR>
Frank Hoffmann<BR>
http://koreaweb.ws<BR>
</BLOCKQUOTE><BR>
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