I am a scholar of English literature specialising in fantasy literature, with a particular interest in the structural features of imaginative space and their role in meaning-making. My research examines how fantasy worlds are organised through form and paratextual design-such as maps, spatial ordering, borders, and symbolic geography-and how these structures frame readers' expectations and interpretive orientation prior to narrative engagement. I focus especially on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Edith Nesbit, approaching fantasy not merely as a genre but as a mode of thought shaped by philology, ethics, theology, and aesthetic form. More broadly, my research explores how English fantasy negotiates the relationship between imagination and knowledge through tensions between freedom and authority, enchantment and discipline, and innocence and responsibility. Drawing on fantasy literature studies, ideological criticism, and narratology, I investigate how fantasy narratives shape readerly formation at cognitive, affective, and ethical levels. Through this work, I aim to contribute to Tolkien and Lewis scholarship by foregrounding fantasy as an intellectually rigorous and ethically serious literary practice within the Oxford tradition.
Selected publications:
Horror and Humour of Children's Literature: The Storytelling Strategy of R.L. Stein's Goosebumps Series, Children's Literature and Translation Studies Institute, Vol. 41, p. 195-223, 2021
A Study on Children's Fantasy Works of Frank Baum: Space of Fantasy and Storytelling, Children's Literature and Translation Studies Institute, Vol. 34, p. 39-70, 2017
C. S. Lewis`s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: The Structure of Fantastic Space and Narrative Strategy, Jungang English Language and Literature Association of Korea, Vol. 57, p. 201-222, 2015
A Boundary between Reality and Fantasy: Text-Image Interaction in The Wolves in the Walls, Story&Image Telling Research Institute, Vol. 9, p. 127-155, 2015
Narrative Techniques of Fantastic Space in Children's Literature, PhD Thesis, University of Yonsei, 2015
Edith Nesbit's Five Children and It: The Structure of Fantastic Space and the Concept of Childhood in Her Modern Fairy Tale, Jungang English Language and Literature Association of Korea, 2013
The Literary Traits of Children's Fantasy in The Phoenix and the Carpet: The Structure of Fantastic Space and Its Narrative Effects, Children's Literature and Translation Studies Institute, Vol. 26, p. 168-199, 2013
