The course at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston – 5,327 miles from Pyongyang – will detail life under tyrant Kim Jong-un.
Prof Hazel Smith said despite choreographed state events, its people did not believe the propaganda, adding: “They’re very cynical about the government.”
The uni will offer an MA in the subject and the £5,000, one year programme will provide a unique insight into the lives of the 24 million people living under the secretive regime of Kim Jong-un.
Using social science philosophies, it will show students what life is really like in the communist state, provide training in the Korean language - and dispel some of the myths about life under Kim.
Professor Smith, is a world-leading scholar who has just written 'North Korea: Markets and Military Rule', is course director.
She worked in the country, and believes its people are misunderstood.
The North Korea of 2015 is very different from the North Korea of the 1990's, she says.
It is now a market economy combined with a military dictatorship.
Before it was a nationalist, Socialist command economy where everyone relied on the state for food.
She said: "Today no-one relies on the state for income, only on the market. So unlike North Korea up until the 1990's, the population is relatively divorced from the state on a day to day level.
"They do not believe state propaganda. They are largely cynical about the government.
"As for Kim Jong-un, he certainly does not rule on his own. No one really knows who has what level of power within the ruling elite."
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