Spencer Lee-Lenfield

Spencer Lee-Lenfield's picture
Title: 
5th Year Graduate Student Comparative Literature

Biography

Spencer Lee-Lenfield is writing a dissertation on translation and adaptation between Korean literature and English literature by Koreans over the past century, including the work of Han Yong-un, Younghill Kang, Richard E. Kim, Yu Hyǒnmok, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and her family, Kim Hyesoon, and Don Mee Choi. He is also interested in the history and theory of the novel, issues of ethics and literature, classical reception, global modernism, and literary influence. He has written as a reviewer and arts/ideas journalist for websites and magazines including, The New York Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Guernica, Slate, The Yale Review, and Harvard Magazine.

Research Interests

Asian Languages and Literatures; Classical Literature; English and Anglophone Literature; Fiction; Film; Modernism; Poetry; Translation

In addition to the above, Lee-Lenfield is also interested in adoption studies, classical reception, and East Asian emigrant literature.

Working Languages

English, French, Greek (Ancient), Korean, Latin, Literary Sinitic (i.e., classical Chinese)

Education History

A.B. Harvard 2012 (History and Literature), summa cum laude

B.A. Oxford 2015 (Classics and Philosophy), first-class honours

Publications

“Victorian Poetry and Classical Verse Composition: On Translation as Affiliation,” Proceedings of the Modern Language Association 138/3 (2023, forthcoming)

“An Unreality Effect: Simile in Flaubert’s Madame Bovary,” Poetics Today 43/4 (December 2022): 595–610

“Translating Style: Flaubert’s Influence on English Narrative Prose,” Modern Language Quarterly 81/2 (June 2020): 193-217