Pyongyang Chronicles: Why North Korean scholars love Shakespeare but hate Freud

Opinion

Pyongyang Chronicles: Why North Korean scholars love Shakespeare but hate Freud

Professors at the DPRK’s top university are passionate and curious but face considerable obstacles in their work

Alek Sigley December 21, 2022

Pyongyang Chronicles: Why North Korean scholars love Shakespeare but hate Freud

A teacher at a school in North Korea | Image: NK News (June 8, 2019)

Editor’s note: The following is the fourth in a multipart memoir series written by Alek Sigley about his time studying at Kim Il Sung University.

About the Author

Alek Sigley

Alek Sigley is a PhD student at Stanford University's Modern Thought and Literature program, where he is writing a dissertation on North Korea. From 2018-2019 he studied for a master's degree in contemporary North Korean fiction at Kim Il Sung University's College of Literature. He speaks Mandarin, Korean and Japanese. Follow him on Twitter @AlekSigley.

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