Participants

Sarah Allen 

Preceptor in Literary Chinese and in East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
Sarah Allen is Preceptor of Literary Chinese at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard in 2003. Her research interests are medieval Chinese literature and culture, especially Tang dynasty narrative. She has published a recent article in the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies entitled “Tales Retold: Narrative Variations in a Tang Story” and is currently completing work on a book project, Stories and Story Collections in Tang Dynasty China: From Tale to Text.

Jack W. Chen

Assistant Professor of Chinese Poetry and Thought, University of California, Los Angeles
Jack W. Chen is Assistant Professor of Chinese Poetry and Thought at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to this, he taught at Wellesley College for three years. Prof. Chen received his doctorate from the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University in 2002. He is broadly interested in the intellectual, historical, and comparative contexts of Chinese poetry from the Han through Northern Song periods. He is completing a monograph to be titled The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Tang Taizong’s Poetry.

Cheng Yu-yu 鄭毓瑜

Professor of Chinese Literature, National Taiwan University
Cheng Yu-yu is Professor of Chinese Literature at National Taiwan University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Chinese Literature at National Taiwan University. The main focus of Prof. Cheng’s research has been on Six Dynasties aesthetics, the history of fu (rhapsody), and literary theory and criticism. She is the author of numerous publications, including Liuchao wenqi lun tanjiu 六朝文氣論探究 (National Taiwan University, 1988), Liuchao qingjing meixue zonglun 六朝情境美學綜論 (Xuesheng shuju, 1996), Xingbie yu jiaguo: Han Jin cifu de Chu sao lunshu 性別與加國：漢晉辭賦的楚騷論述 (Liren shuju, 2000), Wenben fengjing: ziwo yu kongjian de xianghu dingyi 文本風景：自我與空間的相互定義 (Maitian, 2005), as well as editing Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu de xin quxiang: ziran, shenmei yu bijiao yanjiu 中國文學研究的新趨向：自然、審美與比較研究 (National Taiwan University, 2005).

Ronald Egan

Professor of Chinese Literature, University of California, Santa Barbara
Ronald Egan works on traditional Chinese poetry, aesthetics, and literati culture of the Tang and Song periods. His publications include studies of major writers of the period as well as topical studies on literature, literary criticism and the relation between poetry and the other arts (painting, calligraphy and music). He is also the translator of selected essays of Qian Zhongshu, one of twentieth-century China's foremost literary scholars. He has recently published a monograph on the problem of justifying interest in beauty and aesthetic pursuits in Song dynasty China in such diverse fields as poetics, horticulture, the collection of art objects and antiquities, and entertainment songs.

Michael A. Fuller

Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature, University of California, Irvine
Michael A. Fuller received his Ph.D. from Yale University and is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literature at the University of California, Irvine. Prof. Fuller is interested in the relationship between poetry and philosophy, linguistics and classical Chinese, and cognitive psychology. He is the author of An Introduction to Literary Chinese (Harvard Asia Center, 1999) and The Road to East Slope: The Development of Su Shi’s Poetic Voice (Stanford University, 1990), and, most recently, an article in Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies entitled “Aesthetics and Meaning in Experience: A Theoretical Perspective on Zhu Xi’s Revision of Song Dynasty Views of Poetry.” 

Mark Halperin

Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Davis
Mark Halperin received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1997, and is now Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Davis. Prof. Halperin’s main research interests lie in the relationship among literature, religion, and elite culture in the Tang and Song dynasties. He has published one book, Out of the Cloister: Literati Perspectives in Sung China, 960-1279 (Harvard Asia Center, 2006), as well as two articles, “Domesticity and the Dharma: Portraits of Buddhist Laywomen in Sung China” (T’oung Pao, 2006) and “Buddhist Temples, the War Dead, and the Song Imperial Cult” (Asia Major, 1999). He is currently conducting research on the relationship between Buddhist monks and local gods in the Tang-Song transition, as well as on the depiction of doctors in medieval literature.

Robert P. Hymes

Horace Walpole Carpentier Professor of Chinese History, Columbia University
Robert P. Hymes is Horace Walpole Carpentier Professor of Chinese History at Columbia University and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979. Prof. Hymes’ work focuses on the social, cultural, and intellectual history of middle-period and early modern China, often taking an anthropological approach to issues in the study of local history. He is the author of Statesmen and Gentlemen: The Elite of Fu-chou, Chiang-hsi, in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambridge University, 1987) and Way and Byway: Taoism, Local Religion, and Models of Divinity in Sung and Modern China (University of California, 2002), both of which have won the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association of Asian Studies. He is also co-editor of Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China (University of California, 1993). His current research takes up the question of changing social networks in China from the tenth through seventeenth centuries.

David R. Knechtges

Professor of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington
David R. Knechtges is Professor of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1968. Prof. Knechtges has broad interests in all aspects of classical literature from the Han through Tang dynasties, with particular attention to the history of fu (rhapsody), the Wen xuan, and the poetry and prose of the Han and Six Dynasties. He is currently at work on a complete annotated translation of the Wen xuan, of which three volumes have been published by Princeton University (1982, 1987, 1996), as well as a literary history of early medieval Chinese literature and a reference companion to classical Chinese literature. He has written numerous studies on Han rhapsody and medieval literature, including The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung (53 B.C.-A.D. 18) (Cambridge University, 1976).

Lee Fong-mao 李豐楙

Research Fellow, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica
Lee Fong-mao is Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. He received his doctorate from Chinese Literature Department of National Chengchi University in 1978. Dr. Lee’s research interests have focused on Daoist literature and culture from the Six Dynasties through Ming and Qing dynasties, with other, broader interests in the fields of classical and modern literature. Dr. Lee has published widely in these areas, and representative works include Liuchao Sui Tang xiandaolei xiaoshuo yanjiu 六朝隋唐仙道類小說研究 (Xuesheng shuju, 1986), You yu you: Liuchao Sui Tang youxianshi lunji 憂與遊：六朝隋唐遊仙詩論集 (Xuesheng shuju, 1996), Wuru yu zhejiang: Liuchao Sui Tang daojiao wenxue lunji 誤入與謫降：六朝隋唐道教文學論集 (Xuesheng shuju, 1997), and Tainan diqu wangchuan jidian baocun jihua: Taijiang neihai yingwang ji 台南縣地區王船祭典保存計畫：台江內海迎王祭 (Chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2006), as well as numerous articles. He is also co-editor of Zhongguo minjian xinyang ziliao huibian 中國民間信仰資料彙編 (Xuesheng shuju, 1989) and has collaborated on other scholarly projects. One of his essays has been translated into English as “The Daoist Priesthood and Secular Society: Two Aspects of Postwar Taiwanese Daoism” in Philip Clart and Charles B. Jones, eds., Religion in Modern Taiwan: Studies of Religious Tradition and Innovation in a Changing Society (University of Hawai’i Press, 2003).

Dore J. Levy

Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies, Brown University
Dore J. Levy received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and is Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies at Brown University. Her interests broadly encompass both poetry and fiction from the Han dynasty through the late imperial period. She is the author of two books, Chinese Narrative Poetry: The Late Han through T’ang Dynasties (Duke University, 1988) and Ideal and Actual in The Story of the Stone (Columbia University, 1999), as well as articles on allegory and fu (rhapsody). She is currently continuing research on the Honglou meng, as well as acting as a faculty mentor in the Contemplative Studies Initiative at Brown.

Liu Yuan-ju 劉苑如

Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica
Liu Yuan-ju is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica. She received her Ph.D. from the Chinese Literature Department at National Chengchi University in 1996. The focus of Dr. Liu’s research is zhiguai (“anomaly account”) literature, which she studies in its aesthetic, religious, narratological, and cultural contexts. She is the author of Shenti, xingbie, jieji: Liuchao zhiguai de changyi lunshu yu xiaoshuo meixue 身體、性別．階級：六朝志怪的常異論述與小說美學 (Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, 2002), as well as many articles, including “Lang fan gujin shifeichang: cong zuopin jieshou guocheng kan Jin Shengtan shige pingdian” 浪翻古今是非場：從作品接受過程看金聖嘆詩歌評點 and “Zhongsheng ru foguo, shenling jiang renjian: Mingxiang ji de kongjian yu yuwang quanshi” 眾生入佛國，神靈降人間：《冥祥記》的空間與慾望詮釋 (Zhengda Zhongwen xuebao, 2004). Her current research will seek to shed further light on zhiguai writings and the theoretical issues of body, inscription, naturalness, place, social power, and history.

Andrew H. Miller

Ph.D. Candidate in Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles
Andrew H. Miller is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, writing his dissertation on the Shuijing zhu. He is also currently a 2007-2008 Digital Humanities Junior Fellow, working with the Center for Digital Humanities, the Digital Humanities Incubator Group, and the UCLA Digital Library. Mr. Miller’s project is entitled “Mapping Culture in the Shuijing zhu: Using GIS to Envision All Under Heaven.”

Stephen Owen

James Bryant Conant University Professor, Harvard University
Stephen Owen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, with joint appointments in the Departments of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Civilizations. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1972. His primary research interests have focused on premodern Chinese literature from the Han through Song dynasties, with a particular focus on lyric poetry and poetics. Prof. Owen is the author of many books and articles, most recently The Late Tang: Chinese Poetry of the Mid-Ninth Century (827-860) and The Making of Early Chinese Classical Poetry, both published by the Harvard University Asia Center in 2006. Some of his earlier studies include The End of the Chinese ‘Middle Ages’: Essays in Mid-Tang Literary Culture (Stanford University, 1996), Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992), and The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: The High T’ang (Yale University, 1981). He is also the translator and editor of An Anthology of Chinese Literature: Beginnings to 1911 (W.W. Norton, 1996). 

Graham Sanders

Associate Professor in East Asian Studies, University of Toronto
Graham Sanders received his Ph.D. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization at Harvard University. He is presently Associate Professor in East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Prof. Sanders works broadly in the field of classical Chinese literature, with particular interests in the relationship between poetry and narrative. He is the author of Words Well Put: Visions of Poetic Competence in the Chinese Tradition (Harvard Asia Center, 2006) and the co-editor of The Appropriation of Cultural Capital: China’s May Fourth Movement (Harvard Asia Center, 2001).

David Schaberg

Associate Professor of Classical Chinese Thought and Poetry, University of California, Los Angeles
David Schaberg is Associate Professor of Classical Chinese Thought and Poetry and Co-Director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA. He completed his doctorate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University in 1996. His research interests mainly focus on late Zhou through Han historiography and thought, with related interests in Chinese poetry, rhetoric, and Greek and Latin comparative literature. He is the author of A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography (Harvard Asia Center, 2001), which won the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association of Asian Studies in 2003. He is also the author of numerous articles and book chapters, including the forthcoming “Authoritative Rhetorics: Prose” (A Supplement to the Cambridge History of China, vol. 1, Qin and Han), “Playing at Critique: Indirect Remonstrance and the Formation of Shi 士 Identity” (Text and Ritual in Early China), and “Song and Commemoration in Early China” (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1999). His current research takes up the history of oratory and oratorical traditions in early China.

Anna M. Shields

Director, The Honors College; Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Anna M. Shields is Director of The Honors College and Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her Ph.D. in Chinese from Indiana University in 1998. Previously, she taught at Princeton University and the University of Arizona. Prof. Shields specializes in Tang and Five Dynasties poetry and prose. She has published one monograph, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Contexts and Poetic Practice of the Huajianji (Collection from Among the Flowers) (Harvard Asia Center, 2006), and is completing work on a second, entitled, One Who Knows Me: The Literature of Friendship in Late Medieval China. She has written several articles, most recently, “Remembering When: The Uses of Nostalgia in the Poetry of Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen” (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 2006). Prof. Shields held a Research Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2005 to 2006.

Richard E. Strassberg

Professor of Classical Chinese Drama and Fiction, University of California, Los Angeles
Richard E. Strassberg is Professor of Classical Chinese Drama and Fiction at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in 1975. Prof. Strassberg has longstanding interests in the dramatic and narrative traditions of late imperial China. His first book, The World of K’ung Shang-ren: A Man of Letters in Early Ch’ing China (Columbia University, 1983), examines the life and historical world of Kong Shangren, author of the famous play, Taohua shan. More recently, he has combined this earlier interest with a new focus on painting and garden aesthetics, travel writing, bestiaries, and the theory of dream interpretation. Other publications include Enlightening Remarks on Painting by Shih-t’ao (Pacific Asia Museum, 1989), Inscribed Landscapes: Travel Writing from Imperial China (University of California, 1994), and A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways through Mountains and Seas (University of California, 2002). A new book, Wandering Spirits: Chen Shiyuan’s Encyclopedia of Dreams (University of California) is forthcoming in 2008.

Xiaofei Tian

Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University
Xiaofei Tian is Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University in 1998. She has interests in the literature of the Southern Dynasties, the late imperial period, and in European literature, and publishes regularly in both English and Chinese. Her publications include Beacon Fire and Shooting Star: The Literary Culture of the Liang (502-557) (Harvard Asia Center, 2007), Tao Yuanming (365?-427) and Manuscript Culture: The Record of A Dusty Table (University of Washington Press, 2005), Zhecheng 赭城 (Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2006), “Safu”: yige oumei wenxue chuantong de shengcheng “薩福”: 一個歐美文學傳統的生成 (Sanlian, 2004), and Qiushuitang lun Jinpingme i秋水堂論金瓶梅(Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 2003), as well as numerous articles and book chapters. Prof. Tian is currently at work on a book on visualization in classical Chinese literature.

Scott L. Waugh

Acting Executive Vice-Chancellor of UCLA, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles
Scott L. Waugh is Acting Executive Vice-Chancellor and Provost of the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as Professor of History. Vice-Chancellor Waugh received his Ph.D. in History from the University of London in 1975. His research interests lie in medieval English institutional history. He is the author of The Lordship of England: Royal Wardship and Marriage in English Society and Politics, 1200-1327 (Princeton University, 1988) and England in the Reign of Edward III (Cambridge University, 1991), in addition to numerous articles. He has co-edited a volume, with Peter D. Diehl, entitled Christendom and Its Discontents: Exclusion, Persecution, and Rebellion, 1000-1500 (Cambridge University, 1995). He is also the author of numerous articles. He previously served as Dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA for fourteen years and has received the school’s highest honors for teaching.