Bae Kwan-Mun received a degree in Japanese language from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and a doctorate degree in comparative literature from the University of Tokyo. Bae was an HK research professor at Hallym Institute of Life and Death Studies. He is a researcher at the Korea Institute for Religion and Culture and the Research Institute of Korean Studies, Korea University. His research focus is Japanese ideology and national studies during the Edo period.

His major publications include『宣長はどのような日本を想像したか: 『古事記傳』の「皇國」』(笠間書院, 2017). He is the co-author of East Asia’s Cultural Symbols I and II (2015, 2017), Drawing the Scenery of Death: On Korean Life and Death Studies (2015), Classical Studies in East Asia and the World of Hanja (2016). He translated Reading Japanese Thanatology (2015), and co-translated Good Death (2015) and Mono no Aware: Birth of Japanese Aesthetics (2016)