Emanuel Pastreich

Pastreich previously served as an international relations adviser to the governor of Chungnam Province, as an external relations adviser at the Daedeok Innopolis research cluster, and was appointed to serve on the committee for city administration (2010-2011) and for foreign investment (2009-2010) for the city of Daejeon.

Pastreich is president of The Asia Institute, a think tank that conducts research on the intersection of international relations, the environment and technology in East Asia. Previously, he was an associate professor at Kyung Hee University, advisor to the president of Kyung Hee University, advisor for international relations and foreign investment to the governor of Chungnam Province (2007-2008). Pastreich served in the United States as director of the KORUS House (2005-2007), a think tank for international relations housed in the Korean Embassy in Washington D.C., and as the editor-in-chief of Dynamic Korea, a journal of the Korean Foreign Ministry that introduces Korean culture and society, and as assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Pastreich attended Lowell High School in San Francisco, graduating in 1983. He began his studies at Yale University, where he graduated with a B.A. in Chinese in 1987, and during college studied abroad at National Taiwan University. Pastreich obtained an M.A. in comparative literature at the University of Tokyo in 1991, where he wrote the master’s dissertation, Edo kôki bunjin Tanomura Chikuden: Muyô no shiga" (The Late Edo Literatus Tanomura Chikuden; The Uselessness of Painting and Poetry), entirely in Japanese. He then returned to the United States and in 1998 received his Ph.D. in East Asian studies at Harvard University. He served as assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, George Washington University, and Solbridge International School of Business. Pastreich was an associate professor at the College of International Studies, Kyung Hee University.

Emanuel Pastreich (born in Nashville, Tennessee, 1964) is an American academic mainly active in Korea. Pastreich is director of the Earth Management Institute in Cheonan, president of The Asia Institute, and vice-president at the Graduate School of Brain Studies. Pastreich writes on both East Asian classical literature and current issues in international relations and technology. He is also a columnist for The Korea Times.