AREA Ruhr Book Talk Series

#6 Youngah Guahk: »Sustainable Development and Local Government in South Korea: The Politics of Eco-City Transition« (English)

Youngah Guahk’s book explores the crucial issue of sustainable transition in modern industrial societies by focusing on local dynamics in South Korea. As urbanization continues, eco-city development has become especially important in East Asia, and Guahk’s work highlights key aspects of urban sustainability. The book examines specific cases of Korean local governments pursuing sustainable urban development, assessing their progress through a variety of sources and research methods. It provides detailed studies of Suwon—where debates over economic development costs led to policy changes and only partial sustainability success—and Jeju province, where efforts to protect natural heritage and tourism drove a long-term push for international recognition. By comparing the objectives, strategies, and decision-making in these two cases, the book clarifies the roles of local leaders, central government, civil society, and international organizations. Guahk’s analysis deepens our understanding of the challenges and drivers of local sustainable transition in South Korea and beyond. Dr. Youngah Guahk is a lecturer at Luiss University in Rome, Italy, and works on Korean affairs. A native speaker of Korean, she is a trained political scientist who received the title of Dr. rer. pol. (PhD) from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. Dr. Guahk is interested in and has published on political institutions in Korea, such as the Korean National Assembly, the role of local government, and on public and cultural diplomacy. This episode is hosted by AREA Ruhr member Prof. Dr. Axel Klein (University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies). The talk took place on 25 November 2025.

#5 Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus: »Jenseits von Nation und Imperium. Interaktionen koreanischer Studierender und japanischer Protestanten (1880–1923)« (German)

What role did Koreans in Japan play in the discourse on Japan’s colonial and East Asian policies when exchanging views with Japanese intellectuals of Protestant faith? Drawing on a wide range of Japanese and Korean sources, this 2024 publication examines how these actors negotiated Japanese colonial rule in Korea and the “Korean question” in relation to regional and global contexts and how their ideas influenced Korea’s reform and independence movement. Dr. Dolf-Alexander Neuhaus is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo, where he works in the research field “Japan in transregional perspective”. Before he worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Japanese Studies at Free University and at the Korean Studies program at Goethe University Frankfurt. When pursuing his PhD, he received scholarships from the DAAD and TIFO and realized several research stays at the universities of Tokyo, Tsukuba and Yonsei (Seoul). His research interest covers modern Asian and global history. This episode is hosted by AREA Ruhr member Dr. Anke Scherer (Ruhr University Bochum, Department of Japanese History). The talk took place on 25 June 2025.

#4 Shuxuan Zhou: »From Forest Farm to Sawmill. Stories of Labor, Gender, and the Chinese State« (English)

In socialist China, the state forestry and timber sectors employed men as official state workers, while women participated as family dependents and collective laborers. Starting in the 1950s, these groups transformed rural landscapes into urban-industrial zones. This makes forestry an exceptional case for examining how government policies shaped and reinforced interconnected dualisms—such as those between humans and nature, urban and rural areas, production and reproduction, and male and female labor. Drawing on oral histories from Fujian, this publication places personal stories of work and resistance in forestry and wood processing within the broader framework of postrevolutionary socialist reforms and China’s rapid economic growth after the 1990s. By exploring how sawmill and forest farm workers adapted state projects and contested authority, this book fosters dialogue across gender studies, labor studies, and environmental studies. Dr. Shuxuan Zhou is a policy analyst in the Seattle Office of Labor Standards and an affiliated faculty member with the University of Washington Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies. She is also a nonfiction writer, aiming to bridge the Chinese- and English-speaking worlds. In this episode, she discusses her 2024 publication with AREA Ruhr host Dr. Nicolas Schillinger (University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies). This talk was recorded on 6 May 2025.

#3 Yasmin Koppen: »East Asian Landscapes and Legitimation. Localizing Authority Through Sacred Sites in China and Vietnam« (German)

This 2024 publication examines the contrasting outcomes of the Chinese Empire’s conquests of Sichuan and Vietnam with a focus on the dynamics between central auhority and local autonomy, as they are evident in the transformation of sacred sites. The Experiential Architecture Analysis (EAA) introduced in this book offers a framework to examine spatial-social interactions, which provided new insights into transcultural ideology transfer and the roles of sacred sites in visualizing power and resistance. Yasmin Koppen is postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Religions at Leipzig University, focusing on Chinese and Southeast Asian religions. She completed her studies in Chinese and Religious Studies at Ruhr-University Bochum and enhanced her expertise in Vietnamese studies as a research fellow at LWL-Museum für Archäologie in Herne. Her current research concerns the religionization of environmental movements in the struggle of indigenous cultures against green imperialism in Southeast Asia.n. This episode’s talk was conducted by AREA Ruhr host Prof. Dr. Christine Moll-Murata (Ruhr University Bochum, Department for Chinese History). The talk was recorded on 14 January 2025.

#2 Jin-Wook Shin: »Democracy and Human Rights in the Kim Dae-jung Era« (English)

This episode’s publication is a collection of six chapters that analytically examine former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung’s philosophy, ideas, policies, achievements, and commitment to democracy, human rights, and peace, and use them to assess the current state of democracy and human rights in today’s South Korea. Edited by Jin-Wook Shin, the 2024 volume is part of a series of books published by the Academy of Kim Dae-jung Studies and includes authors from the disciplines of history, sociology, political science, and law. Jin-Wook Shin is Professor at the Department of Sociology at Chung-Ang University, Seoul. He teaches “political sociology”, “social movements”, and “social problems”, and researches and publishes in areas such as democratic theory, party politics, social movements, social inequalities, and welfare state. To discuss his publication, he is joined by AREA Ruhr host Prof. Dr. Hannes Mosler (University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute of East Asian Studies). This episode was recorded on 25 November 2024.