Curriculum Vitae
Judith T. Zeitlin
University of Chicago
Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations
1050 East 59 th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
(h. ph) 773-288-2247; (cell phone) 773-547-7060 e-mail: jzeitlin@uchicago.edu
EDUCATION
Ph.D 1988, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University.
M.A. 1983, Regional Studies-East Asia, Harvard University
B.A. 1982, magna cum laude with highest honors, East Asian Languages and Civilizations,
Harvard University
TEACHING
2014-
2002-2014
William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor in Chinese Literature, The University of Chicago
Professor of Chinese Literature, The University of Chicago
1994- 2002 Associate Professor of Chinese Literature, The University of Chicago (tenured
1993-94
1996)
Associate Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University
1990-93
1989-90
Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University
Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature, Cornell University
VISITING SCHOLAR POSITIONS
2011-2012 Institute of Chinese Traditional Drama, China Academy of Arts, Bejing (non-teaching) (deferred)
June 2011 Visiting Professor, Department of Art History, University of Zurich (teaching)
1999-2000 Chinese Department, Peking University, Beijing (non-teaching)
UNIVERSITY SERVICE
Faculty Mentor, Harper-Schmidt Chicago Society of Fellows
Member, Chinese Art History Search Committee, Art History department 2014-2015
Member, Faculty Advisory Board, University of Chicago Center in Hong Kong 2014-
Member, Review Commitee, Confucius Institute, University of Chicago, 2014
Dean’s Representative, dissertation defense, Department of Music, May 2014
Member, Council of Advanced Studies 2014-
Member, Court Theatre Faculty Advisory Council, 2011-
Member, Faculty Academic Committee, Confucius Institute 2010-14
Member (elected), Humanities Policy Committee 2009-2011
Member, Provost-appointed Committee to Recommend a New Director for the Center for Gender Studies
2009
Member, Faculty Committee, Theater and Performance Studies 2008-
Member, Council of the University Senate, 2008-2011
Member, Executive Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, 2004-07
Member, Executive Committee of the Center for East Asian Studies, 2004-07
Member (elected), Divisional Committee to Recommend a New Dean of the Humanities, 2007
DEPARTMENT SERVICE
Chair, Early Modern Chinese Literature Search Committee, 2013-2014
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Chair, EALC Tenure Review Committee, for Paola Iovene, 2013
Member, EALC 4th Year Renewal Committee for Reggie Jackson, 2012
Member, EALC Tenure Review Committee for Yuming He, 2011
Chair, EALC 4 th Year Renewal Committee for Paola Iovene 2010
Department Chair, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, 2004-07
Member (elected), Divisional Committee to Recommend a New Dean of the Humanities, 2007
Modern Chinese Literature Search Committee Chair, EALC, 2006-07
Modern Chinese History of Work Search Committee Chair, EALC, 2007
[ earlier service omitted]
GRADUATE WORKSHOPS AND FACULTY SEMINARS
2014-2015 Faculty co-sponsor, Theater and Performance Studies Graduate Workshop
2014-2015 Co-Principal Investigator (with Martha Feldman), The Voice Project, Neubauer Faculty Research
Initiative
2013-2014 Member, The Voice Project, Neubauer Faculty Research Initiative
2013-2104 East Asian Theater and Cinema graduate workshop, faculty co-sponsor
FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS
EXTERNAL
2011-2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (deferred until 2013)
2011-2012 American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (deferred until 2013)
2011-2012 American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship for Research in China in the Humanities
(declined in favor of the above ACLS Fellowship)
2005 Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, Conference Grant for “Musiking the Late
Ming”
2001 Association for Asian Studies, Council on China and Inner Asia, Conference Grant for “Thinking with Cases.”
1999-2000 ACLS fellowship for research in China awarded by Committee on Scholarly
Communication with China (CSCC); visiting scholar at Peking University, Chinese department.
1996
1993
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (NEH) for University Teachers
CSCC China Conference Grant
1988-89
1988-89
1987-88
ACLS/SSRC China Area Studies, Mellon Younger China Scholar Program
Fellow, Whitney Humanities Center, Yale University.
Whiting Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities (Harvard)
INTERNAL
2015 Franke Humanities Institute grants for “The Voice as Something More,” co-organized with Martha
Feldman
2014 Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society Faculty Research Initiative award for the Voice Project, year 2 (co-principal investigator with Martha Feldman), ongoing faculty seminar 2014-2015
2014 Beijing Center conference and recital grant for “Imagining the Sounds of the Late Ming Pipa,” June
2015.
2014 China Committee, Center for East Asian Studies grant to support choreographer Jamie Guan’s residency and master classes in conjunction with Court Theatre’s production of
M. Butterfly.
2013 Confucius Institute exhibition grant for Performing Images:Opera in Chinese Visual Culture at the
Smart Museum.
2013 Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry grant for exploratory workshop on imagining the sounds of the late
Ming pipa, with collaborators Yao Chen (composer) and Wei Lanlan (Pipa performer), May/Jun
2014.
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2013 China Committee, Center for East Asian Studies, grant for Opera in Chinese Visual and Material
Culture . An interdisciplinary symposium in conjunction with the Smart Museum exhibition
Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture , April 2014.
2012 Confucius Institute research grant and publication subsidy for the exhibition cataloge Performing
Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture .
2012 China Committee, Center for East Asian Studies, grant for Doc Films series “Drunken Masters:
Shaolin Shadowboxing and the Wu-Tang Swordstyle”
2011 University of Chicago Beijing Center Conference Grant for “Chinese Opera Film: At the
Intersection of Theater, Cinema, and Politics,” June 2012
2011 Arts Planning Council Grant to support performance of Bingyi’s “Cascade” at the Smart Museum of
Art, May 8, 2011
2010-2011 University of Chicago Smart Museum of Art Mellon Grant for Faculty Initiatives for
Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture Exhibition
2009 Franke Center for the Humanities, College Arts Planning Council, and CEAS conference grants for symposium on “Chinese Opera Film after 1949”
2006 China Committee, U of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies conference grant for
“Pleasure and Passion in Chinese Literature”
2006 Franke Center for the Humanities conference grant for “Pleasure and Passion in Chinese
Literature”
2005 College Arts Planning Council grant for kunqu opera performance
2005 Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, Conference Grant for “Musiking the
Late Ming”
2001 Association for Asian Studies, Council on China and Inner Asia, Conference Grant for
“Thinking with Cases.”
2001 Franke Institute for the Humanities, Conference Grant for “Thinking with Cases”
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Conferences and workshops organized
Nov 2015 Co-organizer (with Martha Feldman), “A Voice as Something More.” A 3 day interdisciplinary and international conference supported by the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.
June 2015 Organizer (with Yao Chen and Lan Weiwei). “Imagining the Sounds of the Early Modern Pipa: A
Dialogue Between History and Practice, Music and Materiality.” University of Chicago Center in
Beijing.
Jun 2014 Organizer, “Imagining the Sounds of the Ming Pipa.” Gray Center exploratory workshop, Jun
2014
Apr 2014 Organizer, “Opera in Chinese Visual and Material Culture.” A 3-day interdisciplinary symposium in conjunction with Smart Museum exhibition, April 2014.
Jun 2012 Co-organizer and panel chair, International Conference “Chinese Opera Film: At the Intersection of Theater, Cinema and Politics”, University of Chicago Beijing Center
Co-organizer (with Paola Iovene), Symposium on Chinese Opera Film after 1949. University of Chicago,
April 17-19, 2009.
Co-organizer with Wai-yee Li (EALC, Harvard), “Pleasure and Passion in Chinese Literature,” symposium in honor of Anthony C. Yu’s retirement held May 26-28 at University of Chicago, 2006.
Organizer, Workshop and Discussion with the Wintergreen Kunqu Society, Shoreland Ballroom, May 8.
2006.
Co-organizer with Joseph Lam (Music, University of Michigan), “Musiking the Late Ming,” international conference held at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, May 4-7, 2005.
Fall 2001. Co-organizer with Charlotte Furth (USC) and Hsiung Ping-chen (Academic Sinica, Taiwan) of
“The Case in Chinese Cultural History,” a three-day interdisciplinary international conference,
University of Chicago, October 2001. Funding from Center for Asian Studies (University of
3

Chicago), the Franke Institute (University of Chicago) Association of Asian Studies Council on
China and Inner Asia (National Association)
April 1999. Co-organizer with David Rolston (EALC, University of Michigan), 2 day symposium on
Chinese literature in honor of Professor David Roy. University of Chicago
EXHIBITIONS, FESTIVALS, PERFORMANCES
Festival Faculty director, Envisioning China: A Festival of Arts and Culture. University-wide festival, Feb-
Jun 2014.
Guest curator (with Yuhang Li). Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture.
Exhibition at the
University of Chicago’s Smart Museum of Art, Feb 13-Jun 15, 2014.
Faculty advisor, M. Butterfly, directed by Charlie Newell, Court Theatre, winter and spring 2014
Faculty co-organizer (with Xinyu Dong), Chinese Opera Film Festival, Jan-May 2014
Performances organized and introduced
“Imagining the Sounds of the late Ming Pipa,” Lan Weiwei solo pipa recital with commissioned premiere by
Chen Yao at the Smart Museum, Jun 2014.
“A Night at the Peking Opera: Tianjin Peking Opera Company,” Logan Center, April 2014.
Kunqu Music Theater performance at the Chicago Cultural Center, 2006.
Program notes published
“A Night at the Peking Opera.” Tianjin Peking Opera Theater performance, Logan Center, April 12, 2014
“Imagining the Sounds of the late Ming Pipa.” Premiere of Chen Yao’s composition performed by Lan
Weiwei.
Public Interviews, introductions, and Q&As
Sinovision TV interview with me on the "Envisioning China festival http://video.sinovision.net/?id=18360
Sinovision TV interview on my career as a student and teacher of Chinese http://video.sinovision.net/?id=18738&cid=124
“Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture--An Interview with Curator Judith Zeitlin” conducted by Drew Dir and published in Court Theatre’s M. Butterfly playbill, Apr-Jun 2014.
Public preshow Q&A with costume designer Mara Blumenfeld for The White Snake (dir. Mary Zimmerman),
Goodman Theater, May 2014
Museum advising
March 2013. Content advisor and workshop participant for new Permanent China Hall, Field Museum.
Jan. 2013. Invited workshop participant. Toward a New Vision of Art and Ethnology in Natural History
Museums. American Museum of Natural History.
Conference chairs, commentators, round tables
Participant, Inaugural Symposium on Contemporary Chinese Art, YUZ Museum, Shanghai, May 18, 2014
Panel Chair, Conference on “Contemporary Horrors: Destabilizing a Cinematic Genre,” University of
Chicago Film Studies Center, April 25-26, 2014
Panel Chair, Conference on “Opera in Chinese Visual and Material Culture,” University of Chicago, April
10-13, 2014
Panel Chair, Conference on “Peripheral Visions in Chinese Literature.” Harvard University, October 2013
Panel Chair, Conference on “Writings, Virtue, and the Social World: Li Zhi and 16th-Century China.”
University of Chicago, October 2013
Panel Chair, “The Screen in East Asian Art,” Franke Institute, University of Chicago, May 2011
Commentator, Symposium on “Manuscripts in Chinese Culture,” Harvard University, May 14-15, 2010
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Commentator, Panel on “Illustration,” Conference on “Representing Things: Visuality and Materiality in
East Asia.” Yale University, April 24-25.
Panel Chair, Chinoperl annual meeting, Chicago, March 2009.
Commentator, Panel on “Sensuous Realms of Chinese Erotic Writing from the Ming.” AAS national meeting, Atlanta, 2008.
Commentator, Panel on Voice, Genre, and Class, “Traditional Chinese Women through a Modern Lens,”
Harvard University, June 2006.
December 2000. Commentator, for symposium on “Let Evidence Speak: the case in Chinese cultural history,” Modern History Institute, Academica Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Moderator, Conference panel, Regarding Modern Chinese Literature , May 6-8, University of Chicago
Participant, Roundtable discussion on House of Flying Daggers , CMS, fall.
November 2000. Panelist on round table discussion for Wu Wenguang’s documentary film “On the Road,”
University of Chicago.
March 1998, Commentator, Panel on Urban Culture in 17th century Jiangnan. National meeting of
Association for Asian Studies, Washington D.C.
April 1998, Chair, panel at Body and Face in Chinese Visual Culture, symposium held at the University of
Chicago.
1997 Organizer of speaker series Between Tradition and Modernity: Images of Women in Late Imperial and
Republican China , co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and the Center for Gender
Studies, University of Chicago.
1997 Commentator for panel on Female Homoeroticism in China, Association of Asian Studies, national meeting, Chicago.
1994 Chair and organizer of panel, Theatricality and Representation in Late Imperial China, Association for
Asian Studies, national meeting, Boston.
1991-94 Chair and organizer of Premodern China Seminar, John King Fairbank Center for East Asian
Research, Harvard University
March 1991 Co-chair and organizer for back-to-back panel, “Dream and Representation in Chinese Art and
Literature.” Association for Asian Studies, national meeting, New Orleans.
Board Memberships
Editorial Board Member, CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature
Society for Ming Studies, Board Member (Apr 2005-2010)
Editorial Board Member, Korea Journal of Chinese Language and Literature .
Reviewer of external grants, manuscripts, and dissertations
External Reviewer, American Council of Learned Societies Selection Committee (2014)
External Reviewer, Research Grants Council (Hong Kong); Killam Research Fellowship (Canada)
External reviewer for PhD dissertation, National University of Australia; University of Toronto
Spring 2001-005. Midwestern Region selection committee member, Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in
Humanistic Studies
Reviewer of manuscripts for Journal of Asian Studies , Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , positions ,
Theater Journal , Critical Inquiry , CLEAR , Chinoperl, University of Michigan Center for Chinese
Studies monograph series, University of California Press, Columbia University Press, Harvard
Yenching East Asian Monograph Series, Harvard University Asia Publications, Brill, and University of Washington Press, CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature.
TALKS AND CONFERENCE PAPERS
Aug 2015 Convocation Speaker, University of Chicago
June 2015 “ A Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art” [in Chinese]. Paper presented at “Imagining the Sounds of the Early Modern Pipa,” University of Chicago Center in Beijing.
Apr 2015 Seminar, “A Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” University of Michigan.
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Nov 2014 “Front Stage, Back Stage, Entrances, Exits: Toward a New Investigation of Chinese Theatrical
Space” [in Chinese]. Paper presented at the Palace Museum/Renmin University/Columbia workshops on Qing dynasty court theater.
Sept 2014 “A Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Toward a reconstruction of its literary, historical, and cultural context.” School of Humanities, Shanghai University.
Apr 2014 “A Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Toward a reconstruction of its literary, historical, and cultural context.” University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Apr 2014. “The Ghosts of Things.” Faculty lunch talk, Franke Institute for the Humanities.
Feb 2014. “A Gorgeous Spectacle: Chinese Opera 101.” Public talk, Livingston Public Library, New Jersey.
Oct 2013. “Flesh, Silk, Bamboo: Musical Instruments and Beautiful Women in Late Imperial Visual
Culture.” A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Courtesans: A conversation with Judith Zeitlin and
Margaret Francesca Rosenthal.
Berkeley Art Museum.
Mar-May 2013. Introduction and overview for the exhibition Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual
Culture . Delivered three times at Smart Museum workshops to different audiences, including the museum’s Board of Directors.
Feb 2013. “The Ghosts of Things.” Keynote lecture. Conference on “Aesthetics of Phantasmagoria: Ghosts in the Far East in the Past and Present.” Inalco (Institut national de langues et civilizations orientales), Paris.
Jan 2013. “Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture.” Center for Chinese Studies, University of
California, Berkeley.
Jan 2013. “The Literary Life of Things in China: A Brief History of Animating the Inanimate.” Paper prepared for Mellon Foundation “Things and Literature” Workshop, University of California,
Berkeley.
Nov 2012. “A Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Toward a reconstruction of its literary, historical, and cultural context.” Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia workshop,
University of Chicago.
Sept 2012. “A Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Toward a reconstruction of its literary, historical, and cultural context.” Conference on Chinese Instruments and Western Museums.
European Foundation for Chinese Music Research and Leiden University, The Netherlands.
Sept 2012. “Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture,” co-presented with Yuhang Li. China
Project Workshop, Institute of Fine Arts , NYU.
Apr 2011. “Mega vs Mini: Two recent Trends in Chinese Opera Stage Productions.” Paper delivered at the
Association for Asian Studies, Annual meeting, Honolulu.
Nov 2010. “The death of Lin Daiyu in opera, spoken drama, and film from late Qing to the Cultural
Revolution.” Presented at The Story of the Stone and The Tale of Genji in Modern China and
Japan,” Columbia University.
Feb 2010. “Specters on Screen in Chinese Opera Film: A Case Study of A Test of Love (Qingtan , 1958),”
Talk, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Oct 2009. “Kun Opera in China Today,” Talk, Annual China Symposium, Northwestern University.
Apr 2009. “The Theatrical Supernatural and the Cinematic Fantastic in 1950s PRCE Opera Film: A Case
Study of A Test of Love .
”
Paper presented at the Symposium on Chinese Opera Film after 1949.
University of Chicago.
Mar 2009. “Between Print, Manuscript, and Performance: Imagining the Musical Text in 17 th -Century
Drama.” Panel on “Theater Beside Itself: Transmutations of the Theatrical in Thirteenth to
Seventeenth-Century China,” National Meeting of the Association of Asian Studies, Chicago.
Mar 2009. “Painting the Invisible World: Literary and Theatrical Perspectives on Luo Ping's
Ghost
Amusement
Scrolls.” Joint session of the Visual and Material Perspectives on East Asia Workshop and the Early Modern East Asia Workshop. University of Chicago.
Dec 2008. “Painting the Invisible World: Literary and Theatrical Perspectives on Luo Ping's
Ghost
Amusement
Scrolls.” Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo.
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Oct 2008. “Painting the Invisible World: Literary and Theatrical Perspectives on Luo Ping's
Ghost
Amusement
Scrolls.” Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. University of Illinois,
Champaign-Urbana.
Oct 2008. “Painting the Invisible World: Literary and Theatrical Perspectives on Luo Ping's
Ghost
Amusement
Scrolls.” Center for East Asian Studies. University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Oct 2008. “The Cultural Biography of a Musical Instrument: Little Hulei as Sounding Object, Antique, Prop, and Relic.” Joint sessions of the Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop and the Early Modern East
Asia Workshop.
November 2007. “Between Print, Manuscript, and Performance: Imagining the Musical Text in Seventeenth-
Century Songbooks and Plays.” First Annual Workshop on Ming-Qing Literature, New School/
Columbia University.
April 2007. “The Literary Life of Things: Reflections on Biographical Objects in Chinese Literature.”
Columbia University, invited lecture.
March 2007. “The Cultural Biography of a Thing.” Keynote speech, symposium on Chinese action and identity, University of Hawai’i, Manoa.
December 2006. “The Cultural Biography of a Thing: 'Little Thunderclap' as Musical instrument, Antique,
Prop, and Relic.” University of Toronto, invited lecture.
October 2006 “Feng Menglong's Celestial Air Played Anew and the Pleasures of Print.” Symposium on “The
Power of Words: In Honor of Stephen Owen,” Harvard University.
May 2006 “Musical Mirrors: ‘Play within play’ and ‘Song within song’ in Seventeenth-century Chinese
Drama.” Symposium on “Pleasure and Passion in Chinese Literature: In Honor of Anthony C. Yu,”
University of Chicago.
May 2006 Intermission talk for Kunqu Music Theater performance at the Chicago Cultural Center.
May 2006 “Illustrated Verse from the late Ming Pleasure Quarter.” Conference on Musiking the Ming, May
4-6, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
April 2006 “The Cultural Biography of a Thing: 'Little Thunderclap' as musical instrument, antique, prop, and relic.” Wu Foundation Lecture, Yale University.
January 2006. "The Cultural Biography of a Thing: 'Little Thunderclap' as musical instrument, antique, prop, and relic." Center for Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
October 2005 “Illustrated Verse from the Green Bower: The Late Ming Pleasure Quarter as a Site of
Cultural Production.” Hsiang Lecture in Chinese Poetry, McGill University.
May 2005 “Ghosts, Sexuality, and Fertility in Chinese Literature.” Lecture delivered to the Women’s Board,
University of Chicago
May 2005 “In and Out of the Antique Market: The Making of a Cultural Relic.” Symposium on Art and
Commerce in East Asia, University of Chicago
April 2005 “The Cultural Biography of a Thing: “Little Thunderclap” as Stage Prop, Antique, and Relic.”
Panel on “Medium and Materiality,” annual meeting of Association for Asian Studies, Chicago.
Nov 2004 “Between Thing and Character: the Roles of a Musical Instrument in Kong Shangren’s
Little
Thunderclap
.” Symposium on “Character in Chinese Literature,” Harvard University.
Nov 2004 “Ghosts and Theatricality,” book chapter presented to the Workshop on Early Modern East Asian
Literature and Cultural History
May 2004 “Ghosts and Memory in
Palace of Lasting Life
,” Conference on “Memory, Memorial, and
Commemoration in Chinese Literature,” Berkeley.
May 2003 “Illustrated Books from the Pleasure Quarter,” Symposium on “From Prints to Photography,”
Center for the Arts of East Asia, University of Chicago
May 2003. “Musical Mirrors: ‘play within play’ and ‘phenomenal song’ in chuanqi drama.” Conference on
Hermeneutics in Chinese Literature, Yale University.
May 2002 “Realizing the Music’”: The Vocal Arts of the Courtesan in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century
China.” Paper presented at the China Workshop on Gender Studies, Harvard University.
April 2002 “’Realizing the Music’: The Courtesan as Singer and Composer in China.” Paper presented at the
University of Chicago Asian Sexualities Workshop.
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April 2002 “‘Realizing the Music’: The Courtesan as Singer and Composer in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-
Century China.” Paper delivered at “The Courtesan’s Arts,” an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural conference at the University of Chicago and the Newberry Library (April 02).
October 2001. “Music and Performance in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Drama: The Case of
Palace of
Lasting Life . Lecture given at Yale University.
October 2001. “The Literary Fashioning of Medical Knowledge and Authority: A Study of Sun Yikui’s Case
Histories.” Paper prepared for “Thinking with Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural
History,” University of Chicago.
May 2001. “Music and Performance in Palace of Lasting Life ,” Paper delivered at Workshop on
Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature, Harvard University.
December 2000. “Poems Written on Walls and the Collection of Women’s Poetry during the Ming and
Qing.” Paper delivered in Chinese at the Institute of Philosophy and Literature, Academia Sinica,
Taipei.
June 2000 “Research methods for the history of Chinese Classical Fiction.” Lecture delivered in Chinese at the Chinese department, Beijing Normal University.
May 2000 “The Representation of Ghosts in Ming and Qing Southern Drama.” Lecture given in Chinese at
The Academy for Traditional Chinese Drama, Beijing.
May 2000 “Writing on Walls and the Collection of Women’s Poetry in the Late Ming and Early Qing.”
Paper delivered in Chinese at the International Conference on Gender and Ming- Qing Literature at
Nanjing University, China.
April 2000 “Ming Medical Cases Seen from a Literary Viewpoint.” Lecture given in Chinese at the Institute for the Study of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Beijing.
March 2000 “Research methods for studying Liaozhai zhiyi and the History of Chinese Classical Fiction.”
Lecture given at the Chinese department, Peking University
May 1999 “The Secret Life of Rocks: Objects and Collectors in Chinese Literature.” Art Institute of
Chicago.
April 1999 “ Memoirs of a Foolish Old Whore : Childhood & First-person Narrative in a late Ming Novella.”
Symposium on Chinese literature in honor of Professor David Roy, University of Chicago.
March 1999 “The Uncanny Image: Ghosts & Portraits in The Peony Pavilion and beyond.” Peony Pavilion
Symposium and Conference on Vernacular cultures, University of California, Berkeley.
October 1998 “Ming Case Histories and the Literary Structure of Medical Knowledge: The Writings of Sun
Yikui.” Workshop on Medicine & Culture, University of Chicago.
October 1998 “Ruined Verses: Writing on Walls and Anxieties of Loss in Late Imperial China.” Charles
University, Prague, Czech Republic.
November 1998 “The Return of the Palace Lady: the historical ghost story and dynastic fall” Conference on
“From Ming to Qing,” Columbia University.
March 1998, Lecture on Chinese literature and autobiography for the Literacy Project, University of
Chicago.
February 1998, “Ming Case Histories and the Literary Structure of Medical Knowledge: The Writings of
Sun Yikui.” Conference on Cultural Studies of Chinese, Science, Medicine, and Technology,
Berkeley Center for East Asian Studies
January 1998, “The Case History as Literary Work: The Medical Writings of Sun Yikui,” Southern
California China Colloquium, UCLA
December 1997, “A Collection of Women and their Writings: A Preliminary Study of
Furen ji
” Symposium in Honor of Professor Patrick Hanan, Harvard University
November 1997, “Making the Invisible Visible: Images of Desire and Constructions of the Female Body in
Chinese Literature, Medicine, and Art.” Keynote address, Attending to Early Modern Women,
Conference by Center for Renaissance and Baroque Studies, University of Maryland
May 1997, “Ruined Verses: Writing on Walls and Anxieties of Loss in Late Imperial China.” Symposium on Ruins in Chinese Visual Culture, University of Chicago.
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February 1997, “Making the Invisible Visible: Female Portraits in Ming Qing Literature, Medicine, and
Art.” Wellesley College.
November 1996, “Images of Desire and Constructions of the Body in Ming and Qing Literature, Medicine and Art.” Premodern China Seminar, Fairbank Center for Chinese Research, Harvard University.
October 1996, “Spirit writing and Performance in the work of You Tong.” Joint session of the workshops on Describing and Depicting Traditional China and Rethinking East Asia, University of Chicago.
July 1996, “Making the Invisible Visible: Images of Desire and Constructions of the Female Body in Ming and Qing Literature, Medicine, and Art.” Symposium for Chinese Art of the Ming and Ch’ing
Dynasties, Art Institute of Chicago.
February 1996, “Spirit writing and Performance in Late Imperial China. Center for Chinese Studies,”
University of Wisconsin, Madison.
May 1996, “Romance in Late Imperial China.” Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs.
November 1995, “Spirit writing and Performance in the work of You Tong.” Conference on dimensions of performance in traditional Chinese culture. Center for Chinese Studies, UCLA.
March 1995, “Self-Representation in Late Imperial Chinese Literature.” Colloquium on Infusing Asia into the Curriculum, College of DuPage, Illinois.
April 1995, “Ghost Writing in Ming-Qing Literature.” British Association for Chinese Studies, Edinburgh,
Scotland.
December 1994, “Embodying the Disembodied: Feminizing the Ghost in Late Imperial Chinese Literature.”
Center for Chinese Studies, University of California at Berkeley.
November 1994, “Ghosts and Resurrection in Late Imperial Chinese Drama.” Chicago Humanities Institute.
March 1994, “Specter as Spectacle: The Representation of Ghosts and Resurrection in Ming and Qing
China.” Association for Asian Studies, national meeting, Boston.
May 1994, “The Three Wives’ Commentary on The Peony Pavilion.” Workshop on Gender Studies,
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University.
September 1993. “Nügui yu guishi: cong Liaozhai kan shiqi shiji zhongguo wenxue zhong de dui yinrou de rengehua yu shiyi hua.” [Female ghosts and ghost poetry in seventeenth-century Chinese literature].
International Conference on Traditional Chinese Fiction, Beijing, China.
June 1993, “Embodying the Disembodied: Representations of Ghosts and the Feminine in Seventeenth-
Century Chinese Literature.” Yale University Conference on Women and Literature in Late Imperial
China.
November 1991, “Place, Memory, and Self-Representation in Literature and Paintings of the Ming and
Qing.” Sackler Museum, Harvard University.
April 1991, “Shared Dreams, Readership, and the Chinese Discourse on Fictionality.” Association for Asian
Studies, national meeting, New Orleans.
February 1991, “The Allure of Dead Women in Later Chinese Literature.” Mansfield Freeman Center for
Asian Studies, Wesleyan University.
March 1989, “Obsession in Chinese Literary and Medical Writings.” Association for Asian Studies, national meeting, Washington D.C.
March 1989, “Dislocations in Gender: Pu Songling’s ‘Human Prodigy.’” Whitney Humanities Center, Yale
University.
October 1988, “Family Conflict in
Liaozhai zhiyi
.” New England Regional Association for Asian Studies.
May 1987, “Over the Borderline: Transsexuals and Transvestites in Seventeenth-Century Chinese
Literature.” Fukiyose Workshop, Harvard University.
May 1986, “An Arsenal in His Belly: Magic and Military Arts in
Liaozhai zhiyi . Workshop on Violence and
Chinese Civilization, Harvard University.
PUBLICATIONS
Monographs
The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature . University of Hawaii
Press, 2007.
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Historian of the Strange: Pu Songling and the Chinese Classical Tale . Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1993. (paperback edition 1997).
Edited Books and Journal Issues
Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture, co-edited with Yuhang Li. Exhibition Catalogue.
Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2014.
Chinese Opera Film . Co-edited with Paola Iovene.
Special double issue of The Opera Quarterly, vol. 26, nos. 3-4, (Spring-Summer), 2010.
Thinking with Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History . Co-edited with Charlotte Furth and
Ping-chen Hsiung. University of Hawaii Press, 2007.
Writing and Materiality in China . Co-editor and co-writer of the introduction with Lydia Liu. Harvard
University Asia Center, 2003.
Articles and book chapters
“Toward a Visual Culture of Chinese Opera.” Introductory essay in Performing Images : Opera in Chinese
Visual Culture. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2014, pp. 14-29, plus preface and 7 catalogue entries.
“The Pleasures of Print: Illustrated Songbooks from the Late Ming Courtesan World.” In Gender in Chinese
Music , ed. Rachel Harris, Rowan Pease, and Shzr Ee Tan. Eastman, Rochester Studies in
Ethnomusicology series. Rochester, NY.: Rochester University Press, 2013: 41-65.
“Operatic Ghosts on Screen: The Case of A Test of Love (1958).” In Chinese Opera Film, edited by Judith T.
Zeitlin and Paola Iovene.
Special double issue of The Opera Quarterly , vol. 26 (Summer/Fall 2010):
1-34.
“The Cultural Biography of a Musical Instrument: Little Hulei as Sounding Object, Antique, Prop, and
Relic.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 69.2 (2009): 395–441.
“Between Print, Manuscript, and Performance: Imagining the Musical Text in Seventeenth-Century
Songbooks and Plays.” In Text, Performance, and Gender in Chinese Literature and Music: Essays in Honor of Wilt Idema, ed. Maghiel van Crevel et al. Leiden: Brill, 2009: 263-292.
“Beauty, Portrait, Ghost in
The Peony Pavilion
.” In 100,000 de Beauté
, ed. Elizabeth Azoulay et al . Paris:
Gallimard (Les Éditions Babylone), 2009. (published in French and English editions).
“Luo Ping’s Early Ghost Amusement Scroll: Literary and Theatrical Perspectives.” In Eccentric Visions:
The Worlds of Luo Ping (1733-1799) , ed. Kim Karlsson et al. Zurich: Museum Rietberg, 2009.
“The Gift of Song: Courtesans and Patrons in Late Ming and Early Qing Cultural Production.” In
Hsiang
Lectures on Chinese Poetry , ed. Grace Fong. McGill University: Centre for East Asian Research,
2008.
“Phantom Heroines: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature and Beyond" in
Ghosts,
Stories, Histories: Ghost Stories and Alternative Histories, ed. Sladja Blazan.
Newcastle, England:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007: 212-226.
“The Literary Fashioning of Medical Authority: A Study of Sun Yikui’s Case Histories.” In
Thinking with
Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History , ed. Charlotte Furth, Judith Zeitlin, and
Hsiung Ping-chen. University of Hawaii Press, 2007.
“Xiaoshuo.” In
The Novel , ed. Franco Moretti. Princeton University Press, 2006: vol. 1, 249-62.
“Music and Performance in
Palace of Lasting Life
.” In
Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature , edited by Wilt Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer. Harvard University Asia Publications, 2006:
454-487.
“‘Notes of Flesh’ and the Courtesan’s Song in Seventeenth-Century China.” In
The Courtesan’s Arts:
Cross-Cultural Perspectives , ed. Martha Feldman and Bonnie Gordon. Oxford University Press,
2006: 75-99. [Winner of the Ruth A.Solie Award for the best multi-authored collection of 2006 from the American Musicological Society.]
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“The Return of the Palace Lady: The Historical Ghost Story and Dynastic Fall.” In
Dynastic Decline and
Cultural Innovation , ed. David Wang and Shang Wei. Harvard Asia Center Publications, 2006:151-
99.
“The Secret History of the Hamentash in China.” In The Great Latke Hamantash Debate , ed. Ruth Fredman
Cernea. University of Chicago Press, 2005: 177-84
“The Life and Death of the Image: Ghosts and Portraits in Chinese Literature.” In Body and Face in
Chinese Visual Culture , ed. Wu Hung and Katherine Mino. Harvard University Asia Center
Publications, 2005: 229-256.
“Disappearing Verses: Writing on Walls and Anxieties of Loss in Late Imperial China.” In Writing and
Materiality in China , ed. Judith Zeitlin and Lydia Liu. Harvard University University Asia Center,
2003, 73-125.
“My Year of Peonies.” Special issue on recent performances of The Peony Pavilion . Asian Theater Journal
19.1 (Spring 2002): 124-33.
“ Xiaoshuo .” [in Italian]. In Il Romanzo (The Novel), vol. 3: Storia e geographia (History and Geography)
Turin, Italy: Einaudi, 2002: 125-34.
“Poems on Walls and the Collection of Women’s Writings in the Late Ming and Early Qing.” [in Chinese].
In Gender and Ming Qing Literature , ed. Zhang Hongsheng. Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chuban she, 2002:
502-32.]
"Making the Invisible Visible: Portraits of Desire and Medical Constructions of the Female Body in
Sixteenth and Seventeenth-Century China." In Crossing Boundaries: Attending to Early Modern
Women , ed. Jane Donawerth and Adele Seef. University of Delaware Press, 2000.
“The Secret History of Rocks: Objects and Collecting in the Ming and Qing Imagination.” Orientations .
May 1999: 40-47.
“Spirit Writing and Performance in the Work of You Tong (1618-1704).” T’oung Pao (1998):102-35.
“Embodying the Disembodied: Representations of Ghosts and the Feminine in Late Imperial Chinese
Literature.” In Writing Women in Late Imperial China , ed. by Ellen Widmer and Kang-i Sun Chang.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997: 242-63.
“Shared Dreams: The Story of the Three Wives’ Commentary on The Peony Pavilion .” Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 54. 1 (July 1994): 127-79.
“The Petrified Heart: Obsession in Chinese Literature, Art, and Medicine.” Late Imperial China 12. 1: (June
1991): 1-26.
Introductions, postfaces, and reviews
“New Introduction” to K’ung Shang-jen,
The Peach Blossom Fan, trans. Chen Shih-hsiang and Harold
Acton with Cyril Birch. New York: NYRB Classics, 2015: vii-xiv.
Review of Oki Yasushi and Paolo Santangelo, Shan'ge, the Mountain Songs: Love Songs in Ming China
(Brill: 2011). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies vol. 76, issue 1 (Feb 2013): 165-
167.
Report on “Chinese Opera Film: At the Intersection of Theater, Cinema, and Politics,”
Chinoperl: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature. 2013.
“Discourso su Gita di famiglia:Viaggio alla Montagna Cuore di Bue [Postface on A Family Trip: Journey to Mudheart Mountain] by Patrizia Galli Zhang. (Italy: EV, 2009) [in Italian]
My translations from Chinese to English:
Qu You, “The Regulator of the Ultimate Void” and Pu Songling, “Gongsun Jiuniang.” Special Issue:
Violence in Ming and Qing Literature. Renditions 70 (Winter 2009): 35-48.
Wu Yunming, Eternally in Our Memory: Ethnographic Photographs of Qiang-Tibetan Culture from the
Northwestern Region of Sichuan . Shanghai Music Press, 2009.
Institute of Chinese Drama, China Academy of Arts. Pictorial Handbook of the History of Chinese Drama.
Beijing: People’s Music Publishing House, 2003. (as co-editor of translation)
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“Two Ghost Stories from Liaozhai’s Records of the Strange by Pu Songling. In Under Confucian Eyes:
Writings on Gender in Chinese History, ed. Susan Mann and Yu-yin Cheng. Berkeley:University of
California Press, 2001:196-214.
You Tong, “Preface to Linxia cixuan” and Wu Qi, “Preface to Zhongxiang ci.”
In Women Writers of
Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, ed. Kang-i Sun Chang and Haun Saussy.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999: 768-774.
Articles of mine published in Chinese:
"Yiren tongmen: Sanfu heping Mudanting" ["Shared Dreams: The Story of Three Wives' Commentary on
The Peony Pavilion"], trans. Xie Fang. In Yingyu shijie de Tan Xianzu lunwen ji (An Anthology of
Critical Studies on Tang Xianzu in Western Scholarship).
Ed. Xu Yongming and Chen Qiyuan.
Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2013: 186-224.
"Yueqi, gudong, daoju, yiwu--Xiao Hulei wenhua zhuanji" [“Instrument, Antique, Prop, Relic—A Cultural
Biography of Little Hulei”], trans. Song Qiaoyan, Xiqu yanjiu (Research on Chinese Traditional
Theater), Spring, 2012.
“Hong Sheng Changsheng dian de yinyue yu yanchu” [Music and Performance in Hong Sheng’s Palace of
Lasting Life ], Liyun xuekan, 10.2 (Oct, 2009): 176-196.
“Chongshen yu fenshen: Mingmo Zhongguo xiqu zhong de ‘hun dan.’ [Doubling and Splitting the Phantom
Heroine in Seventeenth-Century Drama] In Hua Wei, ed. Tang Xianzu yu Mudanting yanjiu
[Research on Tang Xianzu and Peony Pavilion]. Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiusuo, 2006.
“Tibishi yu Ming Qing zhi ji dui funü shi di shouji” [Writing on Walls and the Collection of Women’s
Poetry in the Late Ming and Early Qing.] In Ming Qing wenxue yu xingbie yanjiu [Studies on
Gender and Ming Qing Literature], ed. Zhang Hongsheng, Nanjing: Jiangsu gujichubanshe, 2002:
502-531.
“Nügui yu guishi: cong Liaozhai kan shiqi shiji zhongguo wenxue zhong de dui yinrou de rengehua yu shiyi hua.” [Female ghosts and ghost poetry in seventeenth-century Chinese literature]. In Proceedings from the 1993 Beijing International Conference on Traditional Chinese Fiction . Beijing: Kaiming chubanshe, 1996: 329-40.
Work accepted and forthcoming
“The Ghosts of Things.” Essay for Paris conference volume for “Aesthetics of Phantasmagoria: Ghosts in the Far East in the Past and Present.”
Work in Progress
The Culture of Musical Entertainment in Early Modern China : Voice, Text, Instrument (book manuscript; under contract to the University of Chicago Press)
“The Literary Life of Things in China: A Brief History of Animating the Inanimate” (journal essay)
A late Ming pipa in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Toward a reconstruction of its literary, historical, and cultural context." (journal essay)
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