
PhD, the University of Pittsburgh
I have a PhD in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, specializing in modern Chinese literature and comparative Chinese and European aesthetic history. My doctoral thesis was on the aesthetic politics of Romanticism in late 18th- early 19th century Europe and early twentieth century China, on their shared ambition to redeem a crisis-ridden modern history by transgressive poetic imagination. The monograph developed from this is published in an esteemed Comparative Literary Studies series. My postdoctoral work extended my intellectual-historical concern for China’s cultural transformation to the post-reform debate on the use of classical traditions and history in popular culture.
My subsequent research in Chinese Studies is developed along my long-time interest in historical aesthetico-cultural practices from modern literary transformations to contemporary social-cultural change. It includes the spatial in modern Chinese fiction and genre development besides radical poetics. The comparative and transnational aspect of my training led to my studies of cultural translations, and the traveling of ideas and conventions.
I have sole authored three books, co-edited two books and one special journal issue. I have published articles in journals such as boundary 2, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, positions: a critique of east asian culture, and book chapters in Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, A Companion to modern Chinese Literature. I supervise PhD, MA and Honours students in Chinese and Comparative literary and cultural studies.
Fellowships and Honours
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Lincoln, UK, 1 June – 1 July 2019;
Distinguished Lecture Professor, College of Literature, Communication and Cultural Studies, Sichuan University, 2018-2022;
Visiting Senior Fellow, Humanities Centre, the University of Pittsburgh, April–June 2015;
Senior Fellow, Asia Research Institute, the National University of Singapore, December 2010 – March 2011;
Senior Visiting Fellow, Centre for Literary and Cultural Research, Berlin, June–July 2009;
Agora Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Studies), Berlin, 2000–2001;
Senior Fellow, Collegium Budapest (Institute for Advanced Studies), Budapest, 2000 (winter)
Post-doctoral Fellow, Institute for Comparative Poetics, Tel Aviv University, 1999–2000.
Fulbright Graduate Scholar, US Information Agency,1989 -1990
Keynote addresses and invited presentations
My Research Supervision
Meng Xia, PhD, History and Memory in Chinese New Immigrant Fiction
Haizhi Luo, PhD, The Modern Transformation of Classical-Style Chinese Poetry
Shiyue Zhou, PhD, The Chinese Ideogram and the Political Economy of Modernist Poetics
Yimin Xu, PhD, Gender Representation in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction
Lihong Wu, PhD, Time Consciousness in Fin-de-siecle Twentieth-century Chinese Cinema
Yi He, PhD, The Body Narrative in Contemporary Chinese Avant-garde Fiction
Mengzi Liu, PhD, The Translation Activities of the Creation Society: a Sociological Perspective
My Teaching
Current undergraduate courses:
Contemporary Chinese Literature, City and Chinese Culture, Professional Chinese A, Professional Chinese B