Dr. Florian Pölking

Dr. Florian Pölking studied Korean Studies and Sinology (History and Philosophy of China) in the Faculty of East Asian Studies at Ruhr-Universität Bochum and successfully completed his Ph.D. in Korean Studies in June 2016. His dissertation is entitled Der Soziopolitische Stellenwert Bauhandwerklichen Fachwissens und seiner Träger in der Späte Chosŏn-Zeit [The Socio-Political Status of Building-Knowledge and its Carriers in the Late Chosŏn Dynasty]. Using the example of building knowledge, he deals with the status of craft knowledge and its carriers within the political and social systems of the 18th and 19th centuries. Since then, he has expanded the focus of his work to include contemporary South Korea. Through interdisciplinary bridging topics such as memory, commemoration, or identity, Dr. Pölking combines his historical with contemporary perspectives and works on political, social, and cultural aspects of modern Korea. In 2019, he moved from Korean Studies to the Politics of East Asia section, where he supervised the Master’s programmes Politics of East Asia and International Political Economy of East Asia. Since April 2022, Dr. Pölking has been working as a visiting lecturer and chair substitute in research and teaching at the Institute of Korean Studies at the FU Berlin. His current working interests are in South Korean foreign policy and international relations, as well as in the areas of collective memory and national identity.