Seongun Park is a PhD student in Chinese history, focusing on the political and intellectual history of the Ming dynasty. He holds a BA and an MA in Political Science from Seoul National University, where he wrote a thesis on how the political legacy of the Ming Taizu, the Hongwu Emperor, has been variously challenged, re-interpreted, and appropriated by later Ming emperors and officials. His research concerns the agency of political actors who, in order to realize their political interests, shape their arguments by appropriating and referring to the normative language that had wide prevalence within the political community.