Ria Roy in Japan

Ria Roy joined Stanford University in 2024 and is a Kleinheinz Fellow at the Hoover Institution where she specializes in the history of modern Korea and East Asia. She researches the intellectual, cultural and political history of modern Korea, the Japanese Empire, and the influences from the Soviet Union. Ria also leads the Northeast Asia History Working Group at the Hoover Institution, where she collects, preserves, and makes available important voices and materials concerning political, social, and economic changes in the 20th and 21st centuries in Northeast Asia. Her curatorial work on rare books and sources in the region has appeared at the Hoover Institution Library & Archives and the Cambridge University Library at the University of Cambridge. She is broadly interested in the history of liberal and illiberal ideas in East Asia, and she is currently writing a book on the history of the leadership succession in the professedly socialist state of North Korea.

During our adventure, Ria will discuss topics such as the roots of Japanese identity, Bushido and Samurai culture, Japan’s transformation in the Meiji period, and Japan and her neighbors in the modern world.

Ria earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Prior to that, she studied at Harvard University and at Waseda University in Japan.