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.