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Summary

I am a historian of East Asia, with a focus on the politics and society of early modern Korea. After studying at UCLA and Harvard, I completed a postdoc with the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale and have held faculty appointments at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania, and the �Ƽ��Ӱ�ԭ��. I have also taught at Harvard, Korea, McGill, Seoul National, and Yonsei, as well as giving some 70 invited lectures, speeches, or presentations, including the 26th Annual Stanley Spector Memorial Lecture on East Asian History and Civilization at Washington University in St. Louis (2019). Major projects of nonprofits have consulted me, including Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (PBS), the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). I co-chaired the organizing committee of the Eighth Biennial World Congress of Korean Studies (2016).

Research interests

My research explores the interplay between institutional power, social hierarchy and the evolving relationship between humans and the natural world. I examine how political authority and social status are reflected through government service examinations, court ranks and the growing disparity between ascriptive status and socioeconomic class in the early modern era, while also tracing the evolution of family history narratives. Although my primary source work focuses on Korea, I maintain a broad, comparative perspective on global historical periodization, seeking to integrate insights from deep history, evolutionary biology and population genetics. This interdisciplinary approach informs my current projects, which investigate the role of animal symbolism in early state formation and the history of human–wild felid interactions.

Books

• . Edited volume. Routledge, 2025.
• . By Kim Ingeol. Translation. Brill, 2024.
• . Stanford University Press, 2022.
• . Stanford University Press, 2018.
• Edited volume (with Yi Tae-Jin and Kirk W. Larsen). Lexington Books, 2017.
• . Stanford University Press, 2014.
• . Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.

Journal articles and book chapters (select)

• “Japan and Korea, 1450–1850.” In The Cambridge History of War, Volume III, War and the Early Modern World, edited by David Parrott and Gábor Ágoston. Cambridge University Press, 2025.
• “Status and Class.” In The Routledge Handbook of Early Modern Korea, edited by Eugene Y. Park. Routledge, 2025.
• “Dynastic Change and Politicide in Early Modern Korea: The Chosŏn Persecution of the Koryŏ Wang, 1392–1413.” Journal of Asian History 51 (2017), no. 1: 55–85. 
• “The Phantasm of the Western Capital (Sŏgyŏng): Imperial Korea’s Redevelopment of P’yŏngyang, 1902–1908.” International Journal of Asian Studies 12 (2015), no. 2: 167–191.
• “Old Status Trappings in a New World: The ‘Middle People’ (Chungin) and Genealogies in Modern Korea.” Journal of Family History 38 (2013) no. 2: 166–187.
• “Status and ‘Defunct’ Offices in Early Modern Korea: The Case of Five Guards Generals (Owijang), 1864–1910.” Journal of Social History 41 (2008), no. 3: 737–757.

Courses taught

• HIST 209: World History II
• HIST 211: History of East Asia I
• HIST 306: History of Korea
• HIST 448A/648A: Korea and Empires, 1864–1945
• HIST 488C/688C: Topics in Nature and Culture: Genes, Environment, and Global History
• HIST 499B: Applied History
• HIST 703: Advanced Studies in History
• HIST 705: Graduate Readings in History

Education

• Ph.D., East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1999
• A.M., Regional Studies East Asia, Harvard University, 1993
• B.A., History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1991