recent-phds

Filed Under: recent-phds

Mengheng Lee

Mengheng Lee

Field: Pre-Modern Korean History, Early  Modern Sino-Korean Relation
Advisor: Jungwon Kim & Robert Hymes
Email: ml4052@columbia.edu

Mengheng is a Ph.D. student in pre-modern Korean history. His research interests include social, legal, and political history of Chosŏn Korea (1392-1910) and contemporary Korean historiography. He also specializes in early modern Sino-Korean relations (Ming-Qing-Chosŏn relations). In his M.A. thesis, Mengheng discussed border-crossing issues between Chosŏn and Manchu in the early 17th century, dealing with the repatriation of ukanju and Manchu-Chosŏn relations. Now he is working on examining the formation of the borderland between Qing and Chosŏn, and the social status system of Chosŏn. Before joining Columbia, he received both his B.A. (2011) and M.A. (2015) in Department of History at National Taiwan University and spent one year at Korea University, Korea (2013-2014) for his personal research.

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Filed Under: recent-phds

Ekaterina Komova

Ekaterina Komova

Field: Japanese Literature
Advisor: Haruo Shirane
Email: ek2853@columbia.edu

Ekaterina is a PhD student in premodern Japanese literature. Prior to coming to Columbia, she received her BA in Asian Language and Culture (Hons., 2012) followed by her MA in Asian Studies (2014) from the University of British Columbia. Her primary research areas include the history and development of linguistic thought as well as the interrelation between linguistic processes such as grammatical and semantic broadening and their effect on the evolution and aesthetization of certain poetic and literary concepts. She is also interested in the tradition of poetic commentaries and reception, in addition to the stylistics and reading of kuzushiji (cursive) texts. Outside of her field of specialty, Ekaterina is actively involved in the research of phonetics of Czech and Russian.

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Filed Under: recent-phds

Yong-ha Kim

Yong-ha Kim

Field: Chinese History
Advisor: Li Feng
Email: yk2727@columbia.edu

Yongha is a doctoral student concentrating on early Chinese history. Before joining Columbia’s community of scholars (Fall 2016), he received both his B.A (2009) and his M.A in history (2014) from Korea University. Under the guidance of Professor Li Feng, he is currently analyzing China’s first empires, the Qin and the Han, from the perspective of the Warring States Period, and seeks to explore the tension between integration and disintegration that constantly haunted the empires. Yongha is especially engrossed in research topics such as the diversity of the Warring States, the counter-reaction towards standardization, and the empires’ measures to pacify the force of dissolution. He is also interested in comparing the process of Chinese empire formation with other cases of the world. As well as using the received texts, he is eager to blend archaeological data, and paleographic sources to reconstruct the history of this era.

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