Hal Swindall (师文德) is a native Californian with a Ph.D. in comparative literature from UC Riverside (1994). He is a vagabond English professor around East Asian universities in China, Korea, Taiwan, and Malaysia. His main academic research interests are late nineteenth-century European literature and art. Still, he has become interested in Chinese literature, Korean Buddhist art, and similar studies during his time in East Asia. He has also translated academic and journalistic French articles.