At the start of the winter term, the Research Training Group GRK 2833 “East Asian Futures” was joined by both a new cohort of Qualifying Fellows for the next two terms as well as a new staff member.

With the previous Qualifying Fellows leaving the programme at the end of September, the new RTG members in the Qualifying Fellowship programme for 2024/25 are the master students Andrea KOSCHAN and Denise MUẞMANN from the Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr University Bochum as well as Liliia PEICHEVA and Aniela TYBORSKI from the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Andrea KOSCHAN is enrolled in the “East Asian Studies” Master programme at Ruhr University Bochum with a focus on Korean Studies and will be exploring future opportunities and challenges for people with disabilities in the Korean workforce and education sphere. Denise MUẞMANN, who is enrolled in the same M.A. programme with a focus on Japanese Studies, aims to analyze how “women’s language” or feminine speech styles have been—and continue to be—shaped and regulated by literary media in Japan. Liliia PEICHEVA, hailing from the “Contemporary East Asian Studies” Master programme at the University of Duisburg-Essen with a focus on Politics, will strive to make sense of neutrality as a political concept in Mainland China for her graduation thesis. Enrolled in the “Modern East Asian Studies” Master programme at the same university with a focus on Economics, Aniela TYBORSKI plans to do research on innovation as a driver of economic development in China.

The new member to the Research Training Group’s staff team is student assistant Jonas SOHRWEIDE, who recently graduated with a B.A. degree from the Faculty of East Asian Studies at Ruhr University Bochum and is now enrolled in one of the university’s Master programmes as well.

Although belated, the Research Training Group extends a warm welcome to its new members and is looking forward to working together.