Emanuel Pastreich

President, Asia Institute

Emanuel Pastreich serves as the president of the Asia Institute (asia-institute.org) with offices in Washington D.C., Seoul, Bangkok, and Tokyo. He was independent candidate for president of the United States in 2020 and also ran against Cornel West as one of two candidates in the Green Party US (2023). He serves as an associate at the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University.

Pastreich has written seven books in English, four books in Japanese, eight books in Korean, and three books in Chinese on international relations, science policy, history and culture, in addition to articles for Global Asia, Korea Times, Yonhap News, Foreign Policy in Focus, the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, etc. His third book in Korean was designated as a national security book by the Korean Ministry of Defense.

Pastreich worked at the Korean Embassy in Washington D.C. (2005-2007) as advisor to the ambassador and editor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs journal “Dynamic Korea.” He was appointed as advisor to Lee Wan-goo (who became prime minister) when he was governor of Chungnam Province (2007-2009), to President Park Geun-hye (2015-2017), and to Park Wan-soon, the mayor of Seoul (2016-2018).

Pastreich conducted research projects with the Korea Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology, the Korea Institute for Nuclear Safety, the Korea Institute for Geoscience and Materials, the Korea Research Institute for Standards and Science, Seoul National University, and was co-founder of the Daejeon Environment Forum run by KAIST University.

He started his career as assistant professor of Japanese literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has taught at Kyunghee University, Harvard University, and George Washington University. Pastreich received a B.A. in Chinese literature from Yale University (1987), a Master’s Degree in comparative culture from the University of Tokyo (1992) and a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University (1998).

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