Jessica Youngji Ryu

Jessica Y. Ryu (she/her/ella/ela) earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in visual communication design and a minor in Hispanic literature from Seoul National University, South Korea, in 2020. She completed her M.A. in Hispanic Language and Literature at the same university in 2022, with a thesis on Salvador Dalí’s literary works and their role in decoding the painter’s often enigmatic works. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Iberian and Latin American Cultures at Stanford, with a minor in Art History. 

At Stanford, she co-coordinated the DLCL Research Unit Early Modern Iberian Worlds (EMIW) and taught Catalan and Spanish in AY 2024-2025. In AY 2025-2026, she served as a TA for the course titled "Introduction to Iberia: Cultural Perspectives."

Jessica has prior experience as an assistant manager of Salvador Dalí and Tim Burton exhibitions in Seoul, Korea, and currently works also as a graphic designer, illustrator, and Catalan-to-Korean translator. Her translation projects include La intrusa (The Intruder) by Irene Pujadas and Incerta glòria (Uncertain Glory) by Joan Sales, both from Catalan to Korean, the latter of which is a work in progress. Additionally, she has been interviewed by several Catalan newspapers, including RAC1 and VilaWeb.

Jessica is most interested in the lives and works of collector-writers in the Iberian Peninsula, with a strong focus on Catalunya around the turn of the century. She is keen to explore how collecting art and objects, and writing, can both function as processes of world-making, a key aspect of cultural modernity.