Research 

I am a literary scholar of premodern China. I am deeply interested in the affective and emotional impact of literary Sinitic texts. My publications have explored these topics on early medieval China: political prose as sociopolitical forces, literature as memory, genuineness and literary fabrication, sound and sight in poetry, Buddhism and court poetry, and literature as propaganda. I am currently working on three research projects: a study of gestures and emotions in early medieval Chinese poetry; an edited volume that (re)considers the broad application of “close reading” as a hermeneutic practice; and a textbook on the forms and affects of Chinese literature, currently titled Affective Learning through Chinese Literature.

My research has been recognized and supported by American Council of Learned Societies’ Comparative Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society Workshop Grant, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation’s Scholar Grant, OSU University Libraries’ Publishing Grant for Open Access Scholarly Monographs, and OSU Arts and Humanities Large Grants. 

For more on my research, see these selected publications:

Monographs

Textual Forces: The Political Prose of the Three Kingdoms Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming in 2026)

Sound and Sight: Poetry and Courtier Culture in the Yongming Era (483-493). Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010.

            Chinese version: Wu Miaohui 吳妙慧. Shengse: Yongming shiqi (483–493) de shige yu gongting wenren wenhua 聲色：永明時期（483–493）的詩歌與宮廷文人文化. Trans. Zhu Mengwen 朱夢雯. Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2022.

Articles

“Genuine Words: Deception as a War Tactic and a Mode of Writing in Early Medieval China, 196–265.” Early Medieval China 28 (2022): 3–26. 

“Artful Remembrance: Reading, Writing, and Reconstructing the Fallen State in Lu Ji’s ‘Bian wang’.” In Wendy Swartz and Robert Campany, eds., Memory in Medieval China. Leiden: Brill, 2018. 10-35. 

“The Art of Wartime Propaganda: Chen Lin’s Xi Written on behalf of Yuan Shao and Cao Cao.” Early Medieval China 23 (2017): 42-66.
 

More about me:

I have been teaching for close to three decades and remain passionate about teaching. I regularly offer graduate and undergraduate courses in premodern Chinese literature and classical Chinese. My pedagogy emphasizes active engagement, critical inquiry, and embodied learning. I am greatly humbled and honored to have received OSU’s Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award. 

I also seek to contribute through my service. I have served on the executive committees of Early Medieval China Group, Western Branch of American Society for Premodern Asia, and American Society for Premodern Asia. At OSU, I currently serve on the selection committee of the Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award and the executive council of the Academy of Teaching. In my home department, I chair the Teaching and Professional Development Committee and serve as the adviser for the Teaching of East Asian Languages and Literatures Certificate.

I live in a house surrounded by nature. Sharing this space with my spouse and our five cats is a daily enjoyment for me.