Shyun J. Ahn

a.k.a. Suhyun J. Ahn, 안수현, 安秀賢

Literary translator and former Ph.D. Candidate
& Aspiring warrior-philosopher
1LT in the U.S. Army
shyun (dot) j (dot) ahn (at) gmail (dot) com

Here are the descriptions of what I do
(click the titles to read in detail)

Serving the Nation: I joined the U.S. Army in March 2024 and commissioned as an Active Duty Second Lieutenant through Officer Candidate School (OCS) in August of the same year. Upon finishing the Air Defense Artillery Basic Officer Leader Course (ADABOLC) in May 2025, I joined MDC-PAC in Joint Lewis-McChord. Currently, I am serving as a Battalion assistant S4 after a year as a Platoon Leader. I am projected to become S4 officer in charge in the near future, helping the Battalion receive and deploy equipment.

Academics: I was a Ph.D. student at the East Asian Studies department at Princeton University from 2019 to 2023 (advisor: Dr. Harvey Lederman from the Philosophy department). I explored philosophical topics ranging from metaethics (esp. moral epistemology) to philosophy of law and politics in the neo-Confucian context. I was also interested in the implications of these discussions for contemporary legal and political discussions. I passed the General Examination in October 2022 and voluntarily left the degree program in June 2023. I am fluent in Korean and Japanese, and conversational in Chinese, and I can read Classical Chinese in a neo-Confucian context. (Read my paper here!) I am planning to return to scholarship, but focusing on the current discussions in metaethics and philosophy of law rather than confining my research to the East Asian tradition. But, for now, I plan to continue experiencing a world outside the university boundary.

Translations: I translate contemporary Korean poetry for fun, and my translations have been published in webzines and established publishers. My most recent published translation is Oh Eun’s From Being to Being in 2025. Before this, I translated Glory Hole by Kim Hyun. I also launched and served as editor-in-chief of Nabillera: Contemporary Korean Literature, a literary translation web magazine. How did this all start? It started from this blog. As an undergraduate student, I translated a Korean poem for fun every month for three years. That attracted interests from experienced literary translators, and my side gig journey started.

Flickr: I love traveling around the world and capturing people’s daily lives. In the past few years, I’ve strived to snap a shot without exposing people’s faces to be less invasive.

Story of an Undercat: I babble.

Other than that, I love singing (who else participated in a musical and a choir in high school/college?) and swimming. I also enjoy writing short stories. I have a cat named Kuku 꾸꾸, who happened to live in the house I moved into. She’s a brave soul, as you can see from her climbing a tree in my backyard:

Fun fact: Jeong (丁) is indeed my legal middle name. It is also my mother’s last name. By coincidence, the English initial and the hanja character of my middle name look alike.