• Region(s): Korea
• Time Period(s): 17th century; 18th century; 19th century
• Theme(s): Korean Literature; History of the Body; History of the Book

Si Nae Park specializes in the study of the literature and literary practices of premodern Korea. Park is interested in the linguistic, inscriptional, and literary ecology of pre-twentieth century Korea. Her research examines the interplay between Literary Sinitic and vernacular, oral dimensions of Literary Sinitic literacy in East Asia, and linguistic ideologies in the production, diffusion, and conceptualization of literature. Her first book, The Korean Vernacular Story: Telling Tales of Contemporary Chosŏn in Sinographic Writing (Columbia University, 2020), is a study of an anecdotal narrative genre called yadam (unofficially circulating stories). It introduces the Tongp’ae naksong (Repeatedly Recited Stories of the East, late 18th century) as a collection of tales whose contents, style, and circulation played a formative role in the spread of yadam. Illustrating the language of the Tongp’ae naksong as a case of a vernacular-inflected Literary Sinitic (Korean vernacular Sinitic) inscribed in sinography, the book intervenes in the common script (han’gŭl)-centered understanding of Korean vernacular literature. Her papers have appeared in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and East Asian Publishing and Society. She is a co-editor of Score One for the Dancing Girl and Other Selections from the Kimun ch’onghwa: A Story Collection from Nineteenth-Century Korea (University of Toronto Press, 2016) and the PI of an online teaching and research tool Premodern Korean Literary and Historical Texts in English Translation: A Timeline. Park is currently working on a new book that examines reading in early modern Korea, with a focus on representations of vocalization, ear-reading (hearing/overhearing/listening to written words), and the voice.

Park received her Ph.D. in Korean literature from the University of British Columbia in 2012. After a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Academy of Korean Studies and hosted by the University of British Columbia, she joined Harvard in 2014.