I was at the Vietnam War Remnants museum in Ho Cho Minh City recently and overheard an American saying that the South Koreans were far more brutal to the Vietnamese during the war and that it was hardly ever talked about. A quick google does give some backing to this claim but many of the links are dead and references hard to check in the wikipedia articles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_in_the_Vietnam_War Is the claim substantial?

Earlier today while listening to some video game music the question crossed my mind about where the stereotypical 'evil laugh' that comes up so often in music, games, movies, books, and so on comes from. Think this sort of thing, the ol 'muahahahaha'. Where did it first appear? Are there instances of old literature that describe such a laugh, or is it the product of more modern times when audio recording became more prevalent? These days it's practically everywhere in all forms of popular culture and it's hard to imagine what iconic thing denoted that a certain individual was the 'bad guy' before the evil laugh. That being said, as a follow up question of sorts, what was used commonly to denote the 'bad guy' before the occurrence of the evil laugh we know today?

• /u/depanneur is a historian of the imagination who is broadly interested in popular belief and the supernatural in medieval Europe, and is specifically focused on that topic as it pertains to early medieval Ireland. His other interests include the intersection of landscape and culture, magic in the pre-modern world as well as animals and animal symbolism. He is willing to discuss the forest in medieval imagination (especially in Ireland), the supernatural in early Irish history and the methods used to study popular cultures in pre-modern Europe, as well as their problems.

• /u/vertexoflife is primarily a historian of the book, but focuses specifically on the history of pornography and obscenity, with a heavy focus on histories of sexuality, marriage, and privacy. He has just finished writing a book on the history of pornography, the majority of which can be read at www.annalspornographie.com. He is happy to answer questions about the overlap between cultural and intellectual historians, or how the book can be a cultural force.

• /u/TheGreenReaper7 holds an MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies from University College London. His research outputs have been on socio-legal culture in a comparative context in the Medieval West (c.1100-c.1300) with a special emphasis on pre-Conquest Wales. His other chief research interest is the development of the social and martial cultural phenomenon commonly known as ‘chivalry' from its (contested) origins in the twelfth-century to the end of the Hundred Years War. Questions about cultural (vis-à-vis legal) bonds, masculinity, and military ethics very welcome!

• /u/itsallfolklore has conducted work on Northern European folklore, especially as recorded in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I have also published on the social/cultural history of the American mining West, working with written and archaeological/architectural resources. My dozen books include studies of Virginia City, Nevada, the architectural history of Nevada, and work with letters from the California Gold Rush. Over three dozen articles include diverse subjects on the same and also dealing with Northern European folklore; I am currently working on a book that is a collection of essays on the folklore of Cornwall. I can address aspects of folklore (particularly as oral tradition manifests in historical documents) and the culture of the Old West.

• /u/historiagrephour holds a master's degree in Scottish history and specializes in the concept of cultural gradation within the Scottish Highlands. For the purposes of the AMA, I can discuss issues related to elite Lowland and Gaelic cultures in early modern Scotland (roughly, 1500-1700) including cultural influences on marriage, fosterage, divorce, education, language, literacy, honor codes, and hospitality.

• /u/WedgeHead is an historian of the Ancient Near East specializing in culture and identity. My interests primarily concern the way ancient people expressed their imagination of the self and other (identity/alterity) in texts. I have written on a variety of topics including cultural appropriation during the reign of Assurnasirpal II (Neo-Assyrian Empire), stereotyping and cultural identity in the diplomatic correspondence of the Late Second Millennium BCE (Amarna Letters), and a variety of topics concerning the Middle Babylonian period (c. 1500–1000 BCE) in Mesopotamia. My current research deals with the formation and development of the concept of ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean world. I am happy to answer anything I can about the cultures of the ancient world or the methods we use to study them.

• /u/Mictlantecuhtli studies the Teuchitlan culture of West Mexico, a Classic period civilization centered around the Tequila volcano of Jalisco. The Teuchitlan culture is one of many of many cultures that make up the shaft tomb tradition of Western Mexico. What sets the Teuchitlan culture apart from other extensions in Nayarit or Colima is their unique concentric circle architecture called a guachimonton named after the principal site Los Guachimontones. My primary focus on the Teuchitlan culture is less on the hollow ceramic figures from their tombs and more on their architecture. I'm interested in how they were built, why they were built, and their distribution on the landscape. My in-progress thesis is on architectural energetics and labor organization in the context of the Teuchitlan culture's corporate power structure.

• /u/Shartastic studies African-American athletes throughout the 19th Century into the early 20th Century. His focus is on African-American jockeys and the modernization/commercialization of sport, but he's happy to talk about other sports and athletes generally too.

• /u/butforevernow is an art historian and gallery curator with a speciality in eighteenth century Spanish art. My current research (for my Master's) focuses on depictions of everyday life in Madrid from/in the later eighteenth century, so I'm particularly interested in the details and workings of that culture, especially the art, theatre, and costume/fashion. I'm happy and eager to answer any questions that I can in that or any related area :)

• /u/TenMinuteHistory: My research is on the Bolshoi Ballet in the 1920s and 30s, My research interests more generally include bodies, movement and their cultural meaning.

• /u/agentdcf: I am a historian of 19th and 20th century Britain, with particular thematic emphases in culture, environment, and food. My research is a cultural and environmental history of wheat, flour, and bread, and it stands at the intersection of several (usually separate) themes and methodologies: cultural history (which I would define as histories of "meaning," broadly defined), social history, environmental history, food, science and medicine, the body, and consumption. I'm best-equipped to answer questions about food and ideas of nature, though I can take a stab at questions of cultural history across the West in the modern period. I have a lot of teaching experience in Western Civilization, world history, environmental history, and some US history (especially California, my home state); this has given me a long and global view of things, but a fairly spotty expertise.

Please note that not all of our panelists live in the same time zones, so some may answer your questions later than others. Please be patient!

^^^^^^^Obligatory ^^^^^^^shoutout ^^^^^^^to ^^^^^^^/u/dubstripsquads ^^^^^^^for ^^^^^^^coming ^^^^^^^up ^^^^^^^with ^^^^^^^this ^^^^^^^panel's ^^^^^^^title

To go along with our previous installments defining tribe and defining empire, today we will discuss political/administrative power.

What makes a king/emperor/president/prime minister powerful?

Is Mao's dictum that "power grows out of the barrel of a gun" correct? Is all power predicated on the ability to wield violence?

Or is power negotiated? Is a leader only powerful because they are able to convince people to go along with their wishes?

How much of power is image? Should the construction of monuments and palaces be seen as an indulgence of the powerful, or a deliberate attempt at projecting the image of power?

Next week's topic will be: Storing and Sharing Chronologies.