Jaein Seol

Jaein Seol is a PhD candidate at Leipzig University, specializing in knowledge politics and memory studies, particularly in relation to transnational entanglements. She studies political phenomena through the lens of knowledge, memory, and discourse within historical entanglements, examining how they shape political dynamics across borders and over time, with particular attention to the relationship between knowledge and power.

In her dissertation, she investigates how right-wing movements in Japan and South Korea produce, circulate, and legitimize discourses of “historical truth,” and how these movements become interconnected across national contexts. Approaching these movements as transnationally entangled rather than nationally contained, her project traces the production, circulation, and recontextualization of revisionist narratives across borders, examining how they interact with historical disputes as well as with domestic and regional power relations. In doing so, her work aims to contribute to broader debates on the global rise of the right by highlighting how right-wing discourses become transnationally entangled, even across historically antagonistic contexts.

During her stay at the DIJ, Jaein conducts archival and field research, drawing on Japan-based sources and engaging with scholars working on right-wing movements and memory politics in East Asia.