Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies
School of Humanities

Premodern Chinese literature, religion and literature, anecdotes, cultural studies of laughter, literary trauma studies

2019-2024 Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

My primary research interests reside in premodern Chinese anecdotal literature in China’s Tang-Song period (7th–13th centuries). My current book project, Tales of Wit and Enlightenment: Buddhism and Entertainment in Song China, is the first English-language study of laughter and humor in premodern China to synthesize literary and religious perspectives, which to date have been conceived of as two distinct bodies of inquiry. Situating humor at the confluence of Song literati culture and Buddhism, Tales of Wit and Enlightenment sheds new light on the heretofore ambiguous relationship between Chan/Zen Buddhist discourses and concurrent Chinese literary and vernacular entertainments by examining evidence preserved in Song biji (lit. brush jottings) anecdotes, including “remarks on poetry” (shihua), vernacular storytelling, and theatrical performances.

Luce/ACLS Fellowship in China Studies
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
Tang Studies Society Scholarly Production Grant

"Anomalous Writing as Memories of Trauma: War and Women in Hong Mai’s Yijian zhi", NAN NÜ 26, 1 (2024): 26-58.

“Humor under the Guise of Chan: Stories of Su Shi and Encounter Dialogues.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 142.2 (2022): 311–333.

Chinese translation of Kroll, Paul W. “Zhang Jiuling and the Lychee” In Collected Articles of Paul W. Kroll, edited by Timothy Wai Keung Chan, 178-196. Nanjing: Nanjing daxue chubanshe, 2021.

Rao, Xiao tr., Zhu Gang and Zhao Huijun. “The Past Lives of Su Shi: Stories of Truth and Adaptation.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, 4.2 (2017), 248-278.

“Jin Shengtan’s Preface to the Twenty-eighth Chapter of Shuihu zhuan.” Renditions, no. 80 (2013), 35-39.

[Book review] Review of Zuo, Ya. Sheng Gua’s Empiricism. Journal of the American Oriental Society 142.4 (2022), 1017-1019.

[Book review] Review of The Drunken Man's Talk: Tales from Medieval China, compiled by Luo Ye, translated by Alister D. Inglis. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 138. 3 (2018), 683-684.

[Book review] Review of Rea, Christopher. The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China. China Review International, 23. 4 (2018), 400-405.

Link to this profile
https://faculty.uci.edu/profile/?facultyId=7268

Last updated
09/26/2024