Ria Roy

About

Ria Roy, a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a specialist in the history of modern Korea and East Asia. Her doctoral dissertation, which she is currently turning into a book, examines the intellectual and cultural history of North Korea in the context of the Japanese Empire’s legacy as well as the influence of the revolutionary bloc. In particular, she explores the history and development of the leadership succession in North Korea, focusing on the role of intellectuals and their ideas in the generation of the unique North Korean model of leadership. More broadly, she is interested in the intellectual interplay between East and West and how it paved the way for a transition to an illiberal modernity.

Roy received her PhD from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She previously received her MA from Harvard University and her BA from Waseda University in Japan.