Callaway Centre Research Seminar

Callaway Centre Research Seminar Series

The Conservatorium of Music is a vibrant centre for research in music and music education, where a thriving community of scholars is engaged in exploring the frontiers of knowledge, working on a wide range of research projects with diverse outputs.

Our free weekly seminar series showcases presenters from within UWA and from the wider community.

Alexandra Leonzini

Short, Dark and Evil: The Orientalization of Japan in North Korean Revolutionary Opera

Despite often dismissed as propaganda unworthy of serious academic attention, the Revolutionary Operas of North Korea provide a fascinating window into the moral world of a nation that's domestic and international policy positions are still very much informed by the ideals of socialist internationalism championed throughout the Cold War. Through a careful examination of several Revolutionary Operas, including The Flower Girl (꽃파는 처녀; 1972), and Victory of the Revolution is in Sight (혁명의 승리가 보인다; 2016), this presentation will examine what the visual and musical othering of Japanese and Japan-sympathetic Koreans reveals about contemporary North Korean society and culture, and the state’s Third World anti-imperialist politics from the mid-1960s.

Bio

Alexandra Leonzini has recently completed a joint Masters in Global History at Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, and holds a Bachelor of Music and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History from the University of Western Australia. From 2015 to 2016 Ms Leonzini was a Global Humanities Junior Fellow for the thematic network Principles of Cultural Dynamics at l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). As recipient of the William Barclay Squire Studentship and a Cambridge International Scholarship, Ms Leonzini will be attending the University of Cambridge from October 2020 to begin a PhD in Music and continue her work on the politics of North Korean opera.

Free entry - join via Zoom (Meeting ID: 312 470 079) or click HERE

Contact details: [email protected]