Peter Graham Moody
Peter Graham Moody
Professorial Lecturer
Part-time Faculty
Contact:
The Elliott School of International Affairs
Foggy Bottom Campus
1957 E Street, NW, Office 503Y
Washington DC 20052
Dr. Peter G. Moody is a historian of Modern Korea and is currently a Korean Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Scholar at the George Washington University. He concurrently serves as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Korean Studies (JKS), which is housed within the George Washington University’s Institute of Korean Studies. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2023 and subsequently served as a Visiting Research Professor at Korea University. His research interests center on the industrialization, ideological evolution, mass media, and cultural politics of the two Koreas, as well as the precursors to those developments taking place during Korea’s period of Japanese colonization. Peter has been awarded fellowships for his archival research, including from the US Fulbright Program and the Academic Exchange Support Program for North Korean and Unification Studies.
In addition to his historical inquiries, Peter analyzes current trends and developments in ROK and DPRK culture and domestic politics. He has been interviewed by several media outlets, including BBC World News and The Wall Street Journal, and he is also an occasional contributor to NK News. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled Mobilizing Musicians and the Making of North Korea, which traces the development of the DPRK’s “total music society” and captures the perspectives of North Korean musical figures who struggled to balance their artistic inclinations with the ruling Korean Workers’ Party’s political imperatives.
Modern Korean history, North Korean politics and society, contemporary Korean media popular culture, transnational history, history of industrialization, music and politics
2024-25 Korea Foundation Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research
2023-2024 Pony Chung Fellowship for Young Korean Studies Scholars
2022 Northeast Asian Council (NEAC) Short Term Research Travel
2020-2021 Ministry of Unification-Institute of Far Eastern Studies North Korean Studies Fellowship
2019-2020 Fulbright Award
PhD., Columbia University
MA, Columbia University
MA, University of Virginia
“Cementing the Sounds of State-Building: Early North Korean Mass Music and Staged Works of Music (1945–1949).” Seoul Journal of Korean Studies 37, no. 2: 113-135.
“Life Songs and Lifelong Expertise: The Hidden Sustainable Properties of Music North Korean Secondary Cities,” in Pursuing Sustainable Urban Development in North Korea, edited by Pavel Em (Routledge, 2024): 48-58.
“From MacArthur’s Landing to Trump’s Fire and Fury: Sonic Depictions of Struggle and Sacrifice in a North Korean Short Story, Film, and Opera,” with Alexandra Leonzini, Korean Studies 46 (2022): 73-106.
“Girl Power” DPRK Style: The Girl Group Phenomenon in North Korea and its Fans Across East Asia,” with Seunghee Ha, in Perspectives of Gender, Sexuality, and Stereotype in the Korean Wave, edited by Marcy L. Tanter and Moisés Park. (Lexington Books, 2022): 37-61.
“Yanggak Island Discs: Seeing and Hearing North Korea Through Eight Songs,” with James Banfill, North Korean Review 17, no. 1 (2021): 121-130.
“Reconstructing the National Heritage: Socialist Folk Music in North Korea and East Germany, 1945-1963,” Korea Journal 61, no. 1 (2021): 186-218.
“From Production to Consumption: The Socialist Realism/ Personality Cult Divide in North Korean Popular Music,” European Journal of Korean Studies 20 (2020), no. 1: 7-35.
“Chollima, the Thousand Li Flying Horse: Neo-traditionalism at Work in North Korea,” Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies 13, no. 2 (2013): 211-233.