Research Interests

Hoi-eun Kim is a social and cultural historian of modern Europe and modern East Asia, with ongoing interest in the interactions between Germany, Japan, and Korea in the 19th and 20th centuries. He focuses on medical doctors as transnational agents of knowledge formation and empire-building.

Kim’s first book, Doctors of Empire: Medical and Cultural Encounters between Imperial Germany and Meiji Japan, examined the ‘Germanization’ of medical education and practices in Meiji Japan (1868-1912). Currently, he is writing a book on Japanese doctors in colonial Korea (1910-1945) as researchers, teachers, and private practitioners.

Kim’s post-doctoral research has been supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), the Academy of Korean Studies, and the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD); and two of his recent publications received best article prizes respectively from the American Association for the History of Medicine (2015) and from the Business History Conference (2020).

Publications

Doctors of Empire