Peigang Li joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (Shorenstein APARC)  as a visiting scholar for the 2013-2014 acedemic year. He is currently an Investment Portfolio Manager for Hollyhigh International Capital, the first investment banking firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in Mainland China.   

His research interests include studying China‘s economic development and other areas of economic history in East Asian countries. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Peigang will participate in a research project with the Stanford China Program, where he will evaluate China’s economic situation, and assess its future development for sustainability through institutional change. 

Peigang received a Masters in Power Electric Automation Control from the Northeast China Institute of Electric Power Engineering. After working as a power automation software engineer, his interests in the financial community led him to enter into the investment field. Peigang soon became an industry stock analyst, and a mutual fund manager.

Andreas Kilcher is professor of Literature and Cultural Studies at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich. Kilcher is a prominent scholar of German-Jewish literature and culture, Kabbalah, and the European tradition of esotericism. He has written and edited a range of publications on the encounters between European and Jewish cultures from the sixteenth century through the present, with a focus on the twentieth century. His publications include Geteilte Freude: Schiller-Rezeption in der jüdischen Moderne (Munich, 2006), biographies of the writers Franz Kafka (Frankfurt, 2008) and Max Frisch (Berlin 2011) and numerous articles on German-Jewish literature, Kabbalah in modern Europe, and the relationship between knowledge and literature. Kilcher’s current project includes collaboration with colleagues at Stanford on the divergent constructions of Jewish ethnography in German-speaking and Russian-speaking territories. He was nominated by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and the Europe Center.

Masoumeh is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Siegen in Germany. She completed her “1. Staatsexamen” degree (equivalent to Master of Education) in 2008 in Political Science, German Language and Literature Studies from the Leibniz University of Hanover, Germany.

Her PhD research, which is funded by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, is focused on the political and media representation of Muslims in the context of the German Islam Conference (GIC). In her dissertation, she analyzes the GIC at the political and media level in terms of where essential indicators of the success of the deliberative committee can be found. The guiding questions in her studies are: Who is “allowed” to speak for Muslims, and how are Muslim representatives selected?

As a Visiting Student Researcher at the Europe Center and the Department of Political Science from July 15^th to October 15^th, Masoumeh will study the transatlantic perspective of the German Islam Conference.

Gordon Guem-nak Choe joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center as an APARC Fellow for the 2013-14 academic year. He will be involved with our Korean Studies Program. 

His research encompasses the relationship between media and politics. During his time at Shorenstein APARC, Gordon will work on a comparative study on communication skills between presidents of Korea and the United States.

Choe has over 25 years of experience as a journalist, reporting with Korea’s major broadcasting stations including MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Company) and SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System). He was SBS's chief correspondent to Washington, DC during the Clinton admistration. He also worked as editor-in-chief and vice president for news and sports at SBS. Later he joined the public sector as Senior Secretary for Public Relations to then-South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Choe holds a BA in economics from the Seoul National University.