Sheon Han

[a-z]*

Selected Writing

Essays & Criticism

Reading Lolita in the Barracks — Asterisk
On turning two years of my military service into a reading retreat.

Steven Yeun’s Perfect Accent in “Minari” — The New Yorker
On the film “Minari” and the experience of living as a non-native speaker in America.

Rat Traps — Asterisk
Why do rationalist writings all sound the same?

Talk Therapy: A tribute to the Longform podcast — The Point
On the end of the great Longform podcast.

When Literature Meets Philosophy — On Philosophical Science Fiction — The New Republic
A review of Philosophy Through Science Fiction Stories.

The Magic of Tiny-Home VideosThe New York Times Magazine
About my year spent watching tiny-home videos on YouTube.

A Reading List on Why We Run — Longreads
An essay and commentaries on six writings about running.

A Tale of Two Clubs — Nassau Weekly
On Princeton’s eating clubs: Ivy and Terrace.



Science & Technology

The arXivist — WIRED
On arXiv and its creator, Paul Ginsparg.

What We Lost When Twitter Became X — The New Yorker
About my time at the bird app.

The Case for Software Criticism — WIRED
Why isn’t there “software criticism” like there is film or book criticism?

The Hidden History of Screen Readers — The Verge
On the blind programmers behind screen readers.

On JavaScript, Haskell, Golang, Esolangs, and Ruby — WIRED
For WIRED’s Machine Readable column on programming languages.

On Turing machines, zero-knowledge proofs, and the Curry–Howard correspondence — Quanta Magazine
For Quanta Magazine’s explainers on theoretical computer science.



2025On my mandatory military service (Asterisk) / On Ruby (WIRED) / On AI “accent training” apps (WIRED) / On vibe-coding (The Verge) / A dream of a grasshopper (Kismet) / On Esolangs (WIRED) / On arXiv and Paul Ginsparg (WIRED)

2024 — A critique of Rationalist writing (Asterisk) / On Golang (WIRED) / On the end of the Longform podcast (The Point) / On Haskell (WIRED) / On JavaScript (WIRED) / On “Her” and AI in cinema (The Verge) / On the end of Twitter (The New Yorker)

2023 — A profile of Manuel Blum (MIT Technology Review) / On lookism and plastic surgery (WIRED) / On the Curry-Howard correspondence (Quanta Magazine) / On the Korean word 귀찮음 (gwichaneum) (The Atlantic) / Software criticism on Google Docs (WIRED) / On Turing machines (Quanta Magazine) / Q&A with Arvind Narayanan (Quanta Magazine) / The case for “software criticism” (WIRED) / A reading list on running (Longreads)

2022 — The hidden history of screen readers (The Verge) / On tiny-home videos (The New York Times Magazine) / On migratory grief (The Atlantic) / On “reducetarianism” (TIME) / On zero-knowledge proofs (Quanta Magazine) / Q&A with Leslie Lamport (Quanta Magazine) /

~2021 — On Steven Yeun and “Minari” (The New Yorker) / Robin Dunbar on friendship (The Atlantic) / On long-distance relationships (Catapult) / On philosophical science fiction (The New Republic) / On the Starfield Library in Seoul (Korea Exposé) / On Princeton’s eating clubs (Nassau Weekly) / A profile of the philosopher Alexander Nehamas (Nassau Weekly)