Biography
My research centers around the history and methodology of modern Chinese literary criticism. It draws from literary theory, philosophy of art, linguistics, and studies of the history of the global Cold War, especially concerning Sino-Soviet relations and US public diplomacy in Asia.
My current book project is tentatively titled Chinese Literary Style: Aesthetic Judgments in the Cold War Era. It is an intellectual history of how prominent Chinese literary critics use the concept of “style” to advance their ideological and value judgments about their national literature. Style is an enigma in many branches of the Humanities, an elusive concept that scholars struggle to define. Nonetheless, in Chinese literary criticism, both classical and modern, an interest persists in evaluating the styles of major authors and works. My work identifies an archive of discourses on style in Chinese literary criticism and shows that elite intellectuals utilize these discourses to embellish their aesthetic judgements with an impression of authority. In doing so, my project uncovers the implicit aesthetic criteria, argumentative tactics, and ideological commitments in literary criticism. As an extension of this project, I am generally interested in problems about style and stylistics for any artistic medium.
My other research and teaching interests include Lu Xun; martial arts fiction in post-war Hong Kong; modern fiction set in early China; visual and mass culture.