AREA Ruhr Book Talk Series

AREA Ruhr

In this podcast series, experts from the Alliance for Research on East Asia (AREA) Ruhr meet up with authors of newly released academic books that deal with East Asia from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. The format aims to provide insights into recently published research results and a discussion of the “research journey” that authors have been engaged in. The talks are conducted in English and German.

Episodes

  1. Jul 28

    #8 Kim Vender: »China and Climate Leadership: A Role Theory Analysis« (English)

    In her book “China and Climate Leadership”, Kim Vender explores China’s leadership role in the United Nations climate change negotiations over two decades. Her analysis of international and domestic expectations for climate leadership and China’s role uncovers why there has been a persistent narrative of China’s big transformation from a “climate zero” in Copenhagen to a “climate hero” in Paris. The book thereby provides a more nuanced perspective on the often dichotomous categorisation of China in international relations. Dr. Vender is a trained political scientist with an interest in climate change governance and Chinese politics and foreign relations. She is particularly interested in the nexus of climate change and global development, geopolitics, and foreign policy analysis. She currently investigates the topic of Loss and Damage with a focus on public opinion on solidarity and climate finance at the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) in Potsdam, Germany. Kim holds a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Edinburgh, an M.A. in East Asian Politics from Ruhr University Bochum, and a B.A. in China Studies from Free University of Berlin. She is furthermore an Affiliated Researcher at the Centre for EU-Asia Connectivity (CEAC) linked to the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at Ruhr University Bochum. This episode is hosted by AREA Ruhr member Prof. Dr. Jörn-Carsten Gottwald (Ruhr University Bochum, Faculty of East Asian Studies). The talk took place on 24 June 2026.

  2. Jul 28

    #7 Amy Catalinac: »Dominance Through Division: Group-Based Clientelism in Japan« (English)

    The governance of Japan presents a puzzle: it is a democracy yet is dominated by a single party that wins almost all elections. Stanger still, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its policies are not particularly popular with voters. How has this situation arisen, and how is it sustained? Amy Catalinac argues that when politicians compete in electoral districts with discernible voter groups, they can make allocations of central government resources contingent on how those groups vote. Using a wealth of quantitative and qualitative data spanning 1980-2014, Catalinac shows that LDP politicians have been doing just that, leveraging their dominance to make groups compete for resources. Dominance Through Division sheds new light on why the LDP has remained in power for so long, why opposition parties are weak, and why policy preferences do not always align with vote choice. It also explains why Japan’s 1994 electoral reform has had limited impact. Amy Catalinac is an Associate Professor of Politics at New York University. She is a scholar of electoral systems, distributive politics, and contemporary Japanese politics. She is the author of two Cambridge University Press books, Dominance Through Division: Group-based Clientelism in Japan (2025) and Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan (2016), as well as articles in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, World Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University, where she was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, and has held positions at Australian National University and Princeton University. Professor Catalinac is currently Associate Editor at the Journal of Politics, and serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies at NYU. 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 5 February 2026.

  3. 12/11/2025

    #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.

  4. 07/08/2025

    #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.

  5. 06/24/2025

    #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.

  6. 04/08/2025

    #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.

  7. 04/08/2025

    #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.

  8. 03/20/2025

    #1 Dorothea Mladenova: »Selbstoptimierung bis in den Tod. Aktive Lebensendplanung in Japan« (German)

    In her first monograph, published in 2023, Dorothea Mladenova looks at the practice of organizing one’s own death (shūkatsu 終活) as a neoliberal self-optimization tool against the backdrop of the super-ageing and “super-dying” society. Her analysis suggests that the ideal of taking care of others has been transformed into a maxim of taking care of oneself. Dorothea Mladenova studied Japanese Studies, Bulgarian Studies and Sociology at the University of Leipzig and at Chiba University in Japan. Scholarships took her to the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tōkyō in 2016, to Ritsumeikan University Kyōtō (DAAD) in 2019 and to Chiba University (JSPS) in 2024. Her research focuses on contemporary Japanese society through the lens of Cultural Studies and Governmentality Studies. In this episode, she joins AREA Ruhr host Dr. Anke Scherer (Ruhr University Bochum, Department of Japanese History) to discuss her publication. This talk was recorded on 29 October 2024.

  • 8 Episodes

About

In this podcast series, experts from the Alliance for Research on East Asia (AREA) Ruhr meet up with authors of newly released academic books that deal with East Asia from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. The format aims to provide insights into recently published research results and a discussion of the “research journey” that authors have been engaged in. The talks are conducted in English and German.

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