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Hyoseak (Stephen) Choi

Hyoseak (Stephen) Choi

Field: Japanese Literature
Advisor: Tomi Suzuki
Email: hc2963@columbia.edu

Stephen focuses on the notion of childhood and its role in the development of modern Japanese literature and culture. His dissertation project looks at how the modern notion of childhood and its various iterations (shōnen, shōjo, jidō, etc.) initiated the creation of new spaces in publishing, which are interwoven with ideas about social development, nation, education, as well as art. He is also utilizing his Korean background to include colonial systems of children’s writing and suggest a rethinking of colonial subjectivities and agencies through the voice of children. Before joining Columbia, he received an MA degree from the Department of East Asian Studies at University of Toronto. He writes fiction in both English and Japanese and also has an avid interest in cinema and visual storytelling, with experience studying filmmaking at the Seoul Institute of the Arts.

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David Xu Borgonjon

David Xu Borgonjon

Field: Contemporary Art, Modern Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Literature, Economic Philosophy
Advisor: Lydia H. Liu
Email: david.borgonjon@columbia.edu

David Xu Borgonjon’s dissertation, “Revolution’s Middlemen,” examines the politics of the Chinese language in modern Indonesia through the media and literature of the Sinophone left from 1945 to 1965. He also has an interest in Asian-American studies and contemporary and modern art of East and Southeast Asia.

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Nicolle Marr Bertozzi

Nicolle Marr Bertozzi

Field: Japanese History
Advisors: Gregory Pflugfelder and David Lurie
Email: nmb2166@columbia.edu

Nicolle is a PhD student in medieval and early modern Japanese history. Before coming to Columbia, she received her BA in East Asian Languages and Civilizations and English Literature from the University of Chicago (2017). Her research interests include material culture, craft knowledge, the repurposing of objects, and the tea ceremony. She has spent over a year apprenticing with sudare screen artisans in Kyoto and studying tea.

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