Hello. I'm a writer and researcher living on Wurundjeri land. My essays have appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Liminal Review of Books, Adoption & Culture, International Journal of Cultural Studies, and others. I hold a PhD (continental philosophy) from the University of Melbourne.
My research primarily focuses on experiences and histories of Korean transnational, transracial adoption. I'm co-founder of the Korean Adoptee Adoption Research Network (KAARN), ibyangIN, and the Philosophies of Difference group, and one half of the Adopted Feels podcast.
Contact me at: ryanreadsthings@gmail.com
Recent Projects
Research (selected)
The Irrational Math of the Heart: Korean Adoptees and Experiential Incommensurability | Adoption & Culture 12(2): 199-221, 2024.
Thinking Trans Embodiment: On Contingent "Home" and Trans Fatigue | Trans Philosophy, edited by Zurn, P., Pitts, A., Bettcher, T.M., & DiPietro, PJ. University of Minnesota Press, 2024.
Adopting Silence: On Adoptee Disenfranchisement and Epistemic Injustice | with Michele Merritt. Philosophies of Adoption: Perspectives and Reflections, edited by Cassidy, L. & Lotz, M. Rowman & Littlefield, 2024.
Racial Belonging and Identity: Impacts on Transracial Adoptees' Epistemic and Moral Agency | with Nabina Liebow. Philosophies of Adoption: Perspectives and Reflections, edited by Cassidy, L. & Lotz, M. Rowman & Littlefield, 2024.
Intercountry adoption and suicide: a scoping review | with Patricia Fronek for the Department of Social Services, Canberra. 2023.
The Social Exclusion of Child-Rearing Unwed Mothers in South Korea | with Han Boon Young & Yang Min Ok. Springer Handbook of Social Inclusion, 2021.
Theorizing Korean Transracial Adoptee Experiences | International Journal of Cultural Studies 24(2): 309-324. 2021.
Spectral Genealogies | Peril Magazine #41, 2020.
Writing
As if the past is an answer | Liminal Review of Books, 2022.
Curious Entanglements | Sydney Review of Books, 2022.
Whole Bodies | Against Disappearance: Essays on Memory, eds. Leah Jing McIntosh and Adolfo Aranjuez. Pantera Press, 2022.
We met each other with different names | Nothing to Hide: Voices of Trans and Gender Diverse Australia, eds. Sam Elkin, Alex Gallagher, Yves Rees & Bobuq Sayed. Allen & Unwin, 2022.
There are no single stories | Bent Street #5.1: soft borders, hard edges, eds. Sam Elkin, Yves Rees, & Tiffany Jones. Clouds of Magellan Press, 2021.
I want to write how you'd tell it | Island Magazine #161, 2021.