During the 17-year rule of Kim Jong-il, North Korea became a dictatorship armed to the teeth but unable to feed its own people without foreign aid. But with the death of Kim Jong Il on December 17th, foreign policy experts across the globe have wondered aloud what does the future hold for this nuclear power? “North Korea as we know it is over,” a Korea specialist who served in the second Bush administration confidently asserted in the New York Times, a mere two days after Kim died. As the last Stalinist state on earth, North Korea, in 2006, became the latest country to join the nuclear club. All eyes are on Kim Rong-Un, the youngest and least-known son of Kim Il-Jong. Will the “great successor” be able to avoid national collapse? Or will the country become subsumed by its northern neighbor, China? The Asian Studies Center and the Korea Council of the University of Pittsburgh as well as the World Affairs Council invite you to an evening seminar with two of the U.S.’s most astute Korea-watchers—Bruce Cumings of the University of Chicago and L. Gordon Flake of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation—to discuss these very important questions.

The Kims' Three Bodies: Dynastic Succession and its Antecedents in North Korea
Bruce Cumings is the Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History at the University of Chicago. He is the editor of the modern volume of the Cambridge History of Korea (forthcoming). He was also the principal historical consultant for the Thames Television/PBS 6-hour documentary, Korea: The Unknown War.

1994 Redux: North Korea's Third Generation Hereditary Succession and what it means for China, South Korea, and the United States
L. Gordon Flake is the Executive Director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation. He has traveled to North Korea numerous times. He is on the Board of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the Advisory Council of the Korea Economic Institute of America.