Peter Moody

Field: Korean History
Advisors: Gregory Pflugfelder and Jungwon Kim
Email: pgm2116@columbia.edu

Peter is a PhD student in East Asian History specializing in the cultural and intellectual history of modern Korea and Japan. He is interested in looking at how the discourse of tradition vs. modern evolved during the colonial and post-war periods, particularly when state actors used notions of civilization and advancement to win support for political projects that were sometimes at the expense of the subaltern. Before coming to Columbia, he obtained his Master’s in East Asian Studies from the University of Virginia where he wrote his thesis on mass mobilization campaigns in North Korea. His recent research interests include microhistories of North Korean coastal cities and the intersection of North Korean ideology and cultural production, particularly when it comes to the popular music soundscape.