Biography
My current research examines the roles of horses in the Qin and Han periods (221 BCE–220 CE) through a wide range of sources, including administrative records, medical manuscripts, funerary art, literary texts, and archaeological evidence. Working across excavated bamboo-slip and silk manuscripts and the transmitted tradition from the Warring States to Han, I ask how horses functioned in daily life and what they meant to people in early China, challenging human-centered narratives that treat animals as peripheral. I seek to reframe animals not only as symbols or tools but as active participants in shaping historical experience. My broader interests include animal studies, palaeography, and manuscript culture. My master’s thesis, Embarking on Desire: An Analysis of Symbolism in Xingxing 狌狌, investigates how the figure of the xingxing (often glossed as a kind of ape) organizes desire, value, and meaning across early Chinese sources.