Please join HSS on Tuesday, October 22nd from 12:15 to 1:50 PM in the Cooper Union Library for a Faculty Focus with Visiting Assistant Professor of History Eilin Pérez.

In this lecture, Pérez draws upon archival photography, posters, and diplomatic correspondence to reconfigure narratives of the Cold War. The lecture examines how visual and rhetorical representations of the divided Korean Peninsula were taken up as part of a global political struggle that linked geopolitics with the desires of emerging nations. Professor Perez goes on to examine what exactly was labeled ‘propaganda’ and proposes several affordances of media—prescribed or potential uses—that emerged during the Cold War and continue to resonate today.

Eilin Rafael Pérez is a historian of modern Korea specializing in diplomacy and decolonization in the Cold War. His current book project examines histories of cultural production that emerged out of engagement between North Korea and solidarity movements of the global South. The project reconsiders traditional Area Studies boundaries by highlighting the networks of information exchange and dissemination developed among anti-imperialist actors across the globe. Eilin’s research has been generously supported by the CLIR/Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources; by several Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships; and by the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.

Raised in Queens, New York, he is now Visiting Assistant Professor of History in the Faculty of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Eilin previously served as Postdoctoral Associate in History and Public Humanities at Yale University. He completed a PhD in History at the University of Chicago after receiving a BA in Asian Studies and History with honors from Williams College.

Please note this event is open to Cooper Union staff, faculty, and students.