I specialize in modern Korean literature and culture. My interests include imperialism and colonialism in East Asia (former Japanese Empire), gender and sexuality, race, popular literature (middlebrow and lowbrow literature), Korean literary history and novel, transwar/transnational Korean cinema. My monograph, Imperial Romance: Fictions of Colonial Intimacy in Korea, 1905–1945 (Cornell UP, 2020) examines discourses of romance and marriage between Koreans and Japanese by critically analyzing print culture, including literary texts, popular media, and film from the colonial era in Korea. Book reviews appeared in The Journal of Asian Studies, The American Historical Review and CHOICE, among others.

Meanwhile, I have co-edited a book on the transwar culture of Korea and Taiwan. East Asian Transwar Popular Culture: Literature and Film from Taiwan and Korea (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) explores the shared experience of colonialism and post-colonialism of Korea and Taiwan through analysis of literature and film. This project was supported by Louis Cha Fund and China-West Strategic Research Theme Fund of HKU.

I am currently working on two book projects, tentatively titled “Middlebrow Literature and Feminist Imagination: Towards a New Genealogy of the Novel in Korea, 1930-1960” and “Writing Mobility: Literature of Border-Crossing, Migration, and Travel in Mid-Century Korea.” They were supported by several research grants, including the General Research Fund (GRF) from the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong, SAR, the Academy of Korean Studies, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, and the Kyujanggak Institute of Korean Studies (Seoul National University).

I started the position at HKU in 2012 when the Korean Studies major was launched. Before arriving at HKU, I taught at Hamilton College (NYS) and was a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow at Doshisha University (Kyoto).

I'm co-convener of the Modern East Asian Research Cluster (MEAL). MEAL regularly organizes book talks and conferences. See here for more of our scheduled events.