Recent UHM graduate students, Dr. Yongshin Kim (political science) and Dr. Yuki Asahina (sociology) got tenure track assistant professor positions at the Department of Chinese Studies, Inha University and at the Department of Japanese Studies, Hanguk University of Foreign Studies respectively this fall.
Dr. Yongshin Kim joins the Department of China Studies at Inha University, South Korea in Fall 2020 as a tenure-track assistant professor. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in 2017, and previously a non-tenure track assistant professor of Chinese political economy in the Division of International Studies at Sejong University, South Korea. His doctoral dissertation, “Rapid Growth amid Failed Policies: Market Transition, Industrial Policy, and the Paradoxical Success of China’s Auto Industry,” examines how growth-promoting industrial policy failed to realize policy intentions but nonetheless produced rapid growth in China’s auto industry. His doctoral research has been funded by numerous institutions, including the Donald Kim Scholarship from the Center for Korean Studies, UHM; UHM-Peking University Exchange Program; the Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation research grant; and, the Chinese government initiated Confucius Institute New China Study Plan. Furthermore, the Chiang Ching- Kuo Foundation also awarded one of the most prestigious doctoral fellowships in China studies to complete the dissertation. Up to now, he has published seven refereed journal articles both in English and Korean, which appeared in Pacific Focus, The Pacific Review, China: An International Journal, Sino-Soviet Affairs, and Social Science Review, and so on.
Dr. Yuki Asahina starts his assistant professor position at the Department of Japanese Studies, Hanguk University of Foreign Studies this fall. He is a sociologist specializing in inequality, globalization, and politics. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa in 2019. He holds a B.A. from International Christian University in Tokyo. His work seeks to understand why we experience inequality and insecurity in the ways we do at different times and places. His dissertation, “Insecure Millennials: Coming of Age in Seoul and Tokyo,” finds that, in spite of many commonalities such as trajectories of economic development, the failure of the state to provide security to citizens and levels of income inequality, young adults in Seoul are much more anxiety-ridden and sensitive to economic inequality and insecurity than their peers in Tokyo. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic research and interviews with 98 young adults, it examines how national politics, institutions, and culture affect the ways people experience inequality and insecurity from a comparative perspective.
Big Congratulations!!