Professor Yi Zheng

Professor Yi Zheng

Professor

PhD, the University of Pittsburgh

Arts, Design & Architecture
School of Humanities & Languages

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.

Phone
9385 1730
Location
253 Morven Brown
  • Books | 2018
    Zheng Y, 2018, From Crisis Poetics to Place Fiction (cong weiji shixue dao diyu xiaoshuo), 1, Huamulan Publishing House, Taiwan: Xinbei, http://elib.infolinker.com.tw/cgi-bin2/Libo.cgi?
    Books | 2013
    Zheng Y, 2013, Contemporary Chinese Print Media: Cultivating Middle Class Taste, Routledge, London, http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315889856
    Books | 2011
    Zheng Y, 2011, From Burke and Wordsworth to the Modern Sublime in Chinese Literature, 1, Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, http://www.thepress.purdue.edu/titles/format/9781557535764
  • Book Chapters | 2016
    Zheng Y, 2016, '“The Province, Other Worlds and Revolution (省城,他乡,革命)"', in Iwasa Masaaki 岩佐昌暲 ; Li Yi 李怡 (ed.), The Dancing Table: Late Qing and Early Republican Chinese Students in Japan and Modern Chinese Literature (清末民初赴日留学生与中国现代文学), edn. 1, Huamulan wenhua chubanshe, Taipei, pp. 219 - 228
    Book Chapters | 2015
    Zheng Y, 2015, 'The World of Twentieth-Century Chinese Popular Fiction: From Shanghai Express to Rivers and Lakes of Knights-Errant', in Yingjin Zhang (ed.), A Companion to Modern Chinese Literature, John Wiley & Sons, West Sussex, UK, pp. 244 - 260, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781118451588.ch15
    Book Chapters | 2014
    Zheng Y; Gal O, 2014, 'Global Motion and the Production of Knowledge', in Gal O; Zheng Y (ed.), Motion and Knowledge in the Changing Early Modern World: Orbits, Routes and Vessels, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 1 - 14, http://www.springer.com/new+&+forthcoming+titles+(default)/book/978-94-007-7382-0
    Book Chapters | 2014
    Zheng Y, 2014, 'Xu Xiake's Travel Notes: Motion, Records and Genre Change', in Gal O; Zheng YZ (ed.), Motion and Knowledge in the Changing Early Modern World: Orbits, Routes and Vessels, Springer, Dordrecht, pp. 31 - 45, http://www.springer.com/new+&+forthcoming+titles+(default)/book/978-94-007-7382-0
    Book Chapters | 2012
    Zheng Y, 2012, 'Historical Crisis and New Poetic Spirit', in Fujita R (ed.), Issues of Far Eastern Literatures, edn. 1, St. Pertersburgh University Press, St. Petersburgh, pp. 251 - 272
    Book Chapters | 2010
    Donald SH; Zheng Y, 2010, 'Chinese Modernisms', in The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199545445.013.0055
    Book Chapters | 2010
    Donald SH; Zheng Y, 2010, 'Chinese Modernisms: Politics, Poetry and Cultural Dissonanc', in Brooker P; Gasiorek A; Longworth D; Thacker A (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Modernisms, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 976 - 995, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199545445.013.0055
    Book Chapters | 2009
    Zheng Y, 2009, 'À La Mode: the Provincial Cosmopolitan', in Donald SH; Kofman E (ed.), Branding Cities: Cosmopolitanism, Parochialism, and Social Change, edn. 1, Routledge, London, pp. 172 - 188
    Book Chapters | 2008
    Zheng Y; Hemelryk Donald S, 2008, 'Richer than before – the cultivation of middle-class taste: education choices in urban China', in Goodman DSG (ed.), The New Rich in China: Future Rulers, Present Lives, Routledge, London, pp. 71 - 82, http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415455657/
    Book Chapters | 2007
    Zheng Y, 2007, 'Wenrenjingshen yu houshehuizuyiqingqu: sanwen wenhua piping (Literati Spirit and Post-socialist Taste: on Contemporary Chinese Essay Culture', in Nanxiu Q; Hongshen Z (ed.), Zhongguowenxue: chuantong yu xiandai de duihua (Chinese Literature: Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity, edn. 1, shanghai guji zubanshe (Shanghai Classics Publishing House), Shanghai, pp. 628 - 641
    Book Chapters | 2006
    Zheng Y; Donald SH, 2006, '“Zhongcan jieji pinwei de peiyang: chengshi zhongguo de yuedu, lüyou he jiaoyu xuanze (Cultivating Middleclass Taste: Urban China’s Reading, Travel and Education Choices)”', in Gong S (ed.), Kui Bu Ji (Steps of Transformation), Shanghai daxue chubanshe, Shanghai, pp. 131 - 137
    Book Chapters | 2004
    Zheng Y, 2004, 'The Romantic Transfiguration of a Sublime Poetics', in Baillie C; Dunn E; Zheng Y (ed.), Travelling Facts: The Social Construction, Distribution, and Accumulation of Knowledge, edn. 1st, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, pp. 92 - 123
    Book Chapters | 2003
    Zheng Y, 2003, 'Cultural Traditions and Contemporaneity : the Case of the New Confucianist Debate', in Lepenies W (ed.), Entangled Histories and Negotiated Universals: Centers and Peripheries in a Changing World, edn. 1st, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt, pp. 310 - 336
    Book Chapters | 2001
    Zheng Y, 2001, 'Cultural Tradition and Modern Confucianism', in Szegedy-Maszák M (ed.), National Heritage and National Canon, edn. 1st, Collegium Budapest Institute for Advanced Study, Budapest, pp. 145 - 176
    Book Chapters | 1997
    Zheng Y, 1997, 'Narrative Images of the Historical Passion: those Other Women—On the Alterity in the New Wave of the Chinese Cinema', in Lu SH (ed.), Transnational Chinese Cinema: Identity, Nationhood and Gender, edn. 1, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, pp. 347 - 360
  • Edited Books | 2014
    Gal O; Zheng Y, (ed.), 2014, Motion and Knowledge in the Changing Early Modern World: Orbits, Routes and Vessels, Springer, Dordrecht
    Edited Books | 2009
    Zheng Y; Hemelryk Donald SJ, (ed.), 2009, Post-Mao, Post-Bourdieu: Class and Taste in Contemporary China, Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney, http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/issue/view/61
    Edited Books | 2004
    Zheng Y, (ed.), 2004, Traveling Facts, 1, Campus Verlag, Frankfurt
  • Journal articles | 2023
    Zheng Y; Donald S, 2023, 'Creative Entrepreneurs: Centenarian Memoirs and Vernacular History', Journal of Contemporary China
    Journal articles | 2023
    Zheng Y; Hemelryk Donald S, 2023, 'Centenarian Memoirs and Vernacular History', Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 53, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/18681026231206408
    Journal articles | 2023
    Zheng Y, 2023, 'The Bildungsroman of an Absolute Artist for Socialist China: Fu Lei’s Family Letters 1954-1966', Boundary 2: an International Journal of Literature and Culture
    Journal articles | 2022
    Zheng Y, 2022, '巴金《激流三部曲》的空间叙事 (The Spatial Narrative of Ba Jin's Torrents)', 当代文坛, 262, pp. 141 - 150
    Journal articles | 2020
    Zheng Y, 2020, '1911 in Chengdu', boundary 2, 47, pp. 173 - 199, http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01903659-7999557
    Journal articles | 2018
    Zheng Y, 2018, 'Crisis and Creation: the Sturm und Drang Poetics of Guo Moruo', Modern Chinese Culture and Literature, 26, pp. 139 - 153
    Journal articles | 2017
    Zheng Y, 2017, '从《里门拾记》到《果园城记》:师陀小说原乡志系列', 现代中国文化与文学 (Modern Chinese Culture and Literature), 23, pp. 1 - 17
    Journal articles | 2016
    Zheng Y, 2016, 'The Prosaic and Provincial History of an Epic Revolution', Journal of Language, Literature and Culture, 63, pp. 138 - 152, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20512856.2016.1244912
    Journal articles | 2015
    Zheng Y, 2015, 'The Local Place and Other Worlds: Li Jieren's Provincial History of Xinhai Revolution (Difang yu Taxiang: Li Jieren de Shengcheng Geming Sh)', Studies of Republican Chinese Literature (Minguo Wenxue yu Wenhua Yanjiu) and Culture, 1, pp. 118 - 128, https://books.google.com.au/books?id=-okzCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=%E6%B0%91%E5%9B%BD%E6%96%87%E5%AD%A6%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6+%E9%83%91%E6%80%A1&source=bl&ots=pJgbY3ORZ2&sig=ZHfqzwh
    Journal articles | 2015
    Zheng Y, 2015, 'The Prosaic and the Epic: Li Jieren's Modern Chinese History in Novel Form', Xiandai zhongguo wenhua yu wenxue (Modern Chinese Culture and Literature), 15, pp. 285 - 293, http://c.wanfangdata.com.cn/Periodical-xdzgwhywx.aspx
    Journal articles | 2015
    Zheng Y, 2015, '庸常与史诗:李劼人的小说近代史', 现代中国文化与文学, 15, pp. 285 - 293
    Journal articles | 2014
    Zheng Y, 2014, 'The History of Words and Transformation of Ideas in 20C China (ciyu de lishi yu sixiang de shanbian)', Studies on Modern Chinese Literature (zhongguo xiandaiwenxue yanjiu congkan, 07, pp. 197 - 201, http://www.cnki.com.cn/Journal/F-F2-XWYC-2014-07.htm
    Journal articles | 2012
    Zheng Y; Gal, Ofer , 2012, '“Beyond Accommodation”', Intellectual History Review, 21, pp. 231 - 239
    Journal articles | 2012
    Zheng Y, 2012, 'Poetics of Crisis and Historical Redirection: Guo Moruo’s Modern Nirvana', Comparative Literature: East & West, 16, pp. 47 - 66
    Journal articles | 2011
    Gal O; Zheng Y, 2011, 'New terms of accommodation: Benjamin Elman's on their own terms and early modern global networks of knowledge', Intellectual History Review, 21, pp. 231 - 239, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17496977.2011.574349
    Journal articles | 2011
    Zheng Y, 2011, 'Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China', JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES, 70, pp. 553 - 554, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911811000404
    Journal articles | 2010
    Zheng Y, 2010, 'What Makes a Genre Blockbuster Good to Look At: Zhang Yimou's Transformative Modus Operandi in Hero', FILM INTERNATIONAL, 8, pp. 47 - 62, http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/fiin.8.1.47
    Journal articles | 2010
    Zheng Y, 2010, 'What Makes a Genre Blockbuster Good to Look At: Zhang Yimou's Transformative Modus Operandi in Hero', Film International, vol. 8, pp. 47 - 63
    Journal articles | 2009
    Zheng Y; Hemelryk Donald S, 2009, 'A taste of class: manuals for becoming woman', Positions - East Asia Cultures Critique, 17, pp. 489 - 531, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/positions/v017/17.3.donald.html
    Journal articles | 2009
    Zheng Y; Hemelryk Donald S, 2009, '“Introduction: Post-Mao, Post-Bourdieu: Class and Taste in Contemporary China”', PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 6, pp. 1 - 11, http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal
    Journal articles | 2008
    Zheng Y, 2008, 'Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific', CHINESE HISTORICAL REVIEW, 15, pp. 356 - 359, http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/tcr.2008.15.2.356
    Journal articles | 2007
    Zheng Y, 2007, 'Cultural Tours and Spiritual Home', Portal Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 4, http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/portal/issue/view/28/showToc
    Journal articles | 2004
    Zheng Y, 2004, '"Personalized writing" and its enthusiastic critic: Women and writing of the Chinese "post-new era"', Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature, 23, pp. 45 - 64, http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/20455170
    Journal articles | 2004
    Zheng Y, 2004, 'Personalized Writing and Chinese Feminist Criticism in the ‘Post’-New Era', Tulsa Studies in Womens Literature, 23, pp. 45 - 64
    Journal articles | 2004
    Zheng Y, 2004, 'The Figuration of a Sublime Origin: Guo Moruo’s Qu Yuan', Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 16, pp. 153 - 198
    Journal articles | 2002
    Zheng Y, 2002, 'Ailing Zhang and Her Aesthetics of Existence', Annals of Scholarship, 14.3, pp. 151 - 168
  • Other | 2017
    Zheng Y, 2017, Gender and Subjectivities in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Culture, , http://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/yizheng/
    Reports | 2017
    Zheng Y, 2017, New program aims to make China a society of book readers, Asian Studies Association of Australia, Canberra, Asian Currents, http://asaa.asn.au/new-program-aims-make-china-society-book-readers/
    Other | 2016
    Zheng Y, 2016, “Public Discourses of Contemporary China: The Narration of the Nation in Popular Literature, Film, and Television”, Contemporary China Centre, Australia National Univ, , http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/686651
    Other | 2011
    Zheng Y, 2011, “On Frederic E. Wakeman’s Telling Chinese History: A Selection of Essays”
    Other | 2011
    Zheng Y, 2011, “On Yingjin Zhang’s Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China,”,
    Other | 2008
    Zheng Y, 2008, “On Shu-Mei Shih’s Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific”,

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

  • Invited Presentation – “Escaping the Golden Age? Pictorial Hermitage and Non-Aspirational Youth Poetry”, SASS Seminar Series, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Monash University, Malaysia, May 27 2021 (online)
  • The Dean’s Seminar – “The Bildungsroman of an Absolute Socialist Artist: Fu Lei’s Family letters 1954-1966,” Institute of Advanced Studies and Faculty of Arts, Lincoln University, June 2019
  • Public Lecture – “Marketing Chinese Literature,” the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing, University of Leeds, June 2019
  • Keynote Lecture – “The Socialist Bildungsroman,” College of Literary and Communication Studies, Sichuan University, June 2018
  • Keynote Lecture – “Shi Tuo’s Hometown Story Series: Narrating Changes of Our Life-world,” School of Literary Studies, Shanghai Jiaotong University, November 2017           
  • Invited Presentation – “The Aesthetic Absolute and Socialist Subjectivity”, The Philosophical Letter through the Ages, Queen’s College, Oxford University, June 2016
  • Invited Presentation – “Li Jieren’s Novel History of a Revolution”,  Novel in or Against World Literature, Biennial Conference –Society for Novel Studies, Pittsburgh, May 13-15, 2016 
  • Keynote Lecture and Masterclass – “The Anthropological Turn and Novels of the 1930s”, Distinguished Guest lecture and Master-class series, School of Literature, Beijing Normal University, April 2015
  • Invited Presentation – “The Province, Other Worlds and Revolution,” International Conference on Late Qing and Early Republican Chinese Overseas Students in Japan and Modern Chinese Literature, Kyushu University, Japan, March 2015
  • Keynote Lecture – “Radical Aesthetics and Radical Politics of the Twentieth Century: Revolution, War and the Modern Chinese Novel”, Politics of the New Speakers Series, Centres of East Asian Studies and Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen, January 2014
  • Keynote Lecture – “Routes, Process and Knowledge Change: Xiake Youji and Other Late Ming Journeys,” the Advanced Studies Institute of Social Science, Fudan University, December 2011

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