Book Manuscript (in progress).

War of Words: Courtly Exchange and the Discourse of Legitimacy in Early Medieval China

Publications

Peer-reviewed articles:

• “As If Heaven Was Warning: Omens and Interpretations in Shen Yue’s 沈約 (441–513 CE) History of the Song Dynasty (Song shu 宋書).” Accepted by Journal of American Oriental Society.

• 间谍、越境、修辞：南北朝时期跨境交流中的“饰”与“实” ([Spies, Border-crossing, and Rhetoric: The Revealing and Concealing of Truths in Early Medieval China]). Wenyi yanjiu 文藝研究 (Literature and Arts Studies), 2024.

• “The Poetics and Politics of Space: Writing Imperial Visits of Private Estates in Early Tang Court Poetry.” The Nanyang Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture. Vol. 4. Special issue on “court culture.” (May, 2023): pp. 34-63.

• “Audible Empire: Musical Orthodoxy and Spectacle in the Sui Dynasty." Early Medieval China, vol. 28 (2022): pp. 73-96.

• “The Epistolary Self and Psychological Warfare: Tuoba Tao’s 拓拔燾 (408-452, r.423-452) Letters and His Southern Audience.” The Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, 7.1 (2020): 34-59.

  • [Chinese version:] “Shuxin zhong de junwang xingxiang yu xinli zhan: Tuoba Tao (408–452, r. 423–452) de guoshu he ta de nanfang duzhe” 書信中的君王形象與心 理戰:拓拔燾(408–452)的國書和他的南方讀者. Lingnan xuebao 嶺南學報, 13 (2020): pp. 51-72.

Book reviews:

• Joanne Tsao, The City of Ye in the Chinese Literary Landscape (Leiden: Brill, 2020). Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 141.3 (2022): pp. 673-675.

• Randolph B. Ford. Rome, China, and the Barbarians: Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Early Medieval China. Vol. 27 (2021): pp. 124-126.

Conference/Workshop Presentations

• This Is Not a Proper Analogy” (ci fei qi lei 此非其類): Conversing and Writing Across Borders in Early Medieval China”

  NEAAS Conference, Wellesley College, Massachusetts, October 2023

  Panel: Reading Between the Lines: Voice and Community in Medieval China

• “间谍、越境、修辞：南北朝时期跨境交流中的“饰”与“实” ([Spies, Border-crossing, and Rhetoric: The Revealing and Concealing of Truths in Early Medieval China])

  Conference: Literature, Perspectives and Methodology: Classical Chinese Literature Studies in Progress. Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, August 2023

• “Working in the Office: Community, Leisure, and Poetry in Early Medieval China”

  Early Medieval China Group Annual Conference, Boston, March 2023

• “As If Heaven Was Saying: Omen, Interpretation, and Political Legitimacy in Early Medieval China”

  AAS Annual Conference, Boston, March 2023

  Panel: Rhetoric, Legitimacy, and Historiography in Early Medieval China (organizer)

• “天意若曰：中國中古的徵兆與正統”

  (“As if Heaven was Saying: Signs and Legitimacy in Early Medieval China”)

  Invited talk, National University of Singapore, March 2023 (Zoom)

• “Spies and Information Warfare in Early Medieval China”

  American Oriental Society Western Branch, Arizona, November 2022

• “The Temporary Recluse: The Discourse of Not Working in Medieval Chinese Poetry”

  Invited talk, Columbia University, April 2022

  Invited talk, Harvard University, China Humanities Seminar, December 2022 (Zoom)

• “The Poetics and Politics of Space: Writing Imperial Visits of Private Estates in Early Tang Court Poetry”

  Workshop “Conceptualizing Court Literature with New Methodologies,” Oxford University, December 2021 (Zoom)

• “Negotiating Truthfulness (shi 實): Liu Zhiji and New Historical Consciousness in Early Tang"

AAS Annual Conference, March 2021, on Zoom

• “Heaven’s Will or Human Affairs: Making Sense of the Dynastic Rise and Fall in the Sui"

Workshop on Multipolarity in Early Medieval China, 560s–610s, December 2020 (on Zoom)

• “Audible Empire and Its Inaudible Sound: Music and Rhetoric of Unification in Sui Dynasty China”

AAS Annual Conference, Boston (Massachusetts), March 2020 (cancelled due to the pandemic)

• “Detainees and Letters to Request Release in Early Medieval China”

Workshop on Migration in Early Medieval China, Harvard University, Cambridge (Massachusetts), May 2019

American Oriental Society Western Branch, Davis (UC Davis), October 2019

• “Xiuci修辭, Leituo leike 雷妥類克, and Rhetoric: Establishing the Discipline of Rhetoric (Xiuci xue 修辭學) in Early Twentieth-Century China”

AAS Annual Conference, Denver (Colorado), March 2019

• “The Emperor’s New ‘Stories’: Telling ‘Truth’ and Writing History in Early Medieval China”

Invited Talk at Brandeis University, Waltham (Massachusetts), January 2019

Faculty Colloquium, Williams College, April 2019

• "Stories, Records, and Historiographies: Liu Yu 劉彧 (r. 466–472) and His Fratricide"

American Oriental Society Western Branch, Stanford (California), October 19-20, 2018

• “An Unbiased Brush: Historiographical Writings in Early Medieval China

First Friday Talk, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard, April 2018

• “‘We Are Brothers, Yet Serving Different States’: Diplomatic Negotiation and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy in Early Medieval China”

AAS Annual Conference, Washington DC, March 2018

• “Rectifying/Vilifying Sounds: Music and Legitimacy in the Sui Dynasty (581–619)”

American Oriental Society Western Branch, Tempe (Arizona), October 2017

• “流寓者與文化規訓: 中國中古的‘禮物’與‘政治’” (“Detainees and Cultural Assimilation: Gift and Politics in Early Medieval China”)

Workshop: Studies of Asian Arts, Religion, and History, Shanghai, June-July 2017

• “Politics of Intimacy: Epistolary Exchange between a Mother and a Son in Early Medieval China”

The Early Medieval China Group Conference, Toronto, March 2017

• “Praising Foreign Gifts in Early Medieval Courts”

American Oriental Society Western Branch, Portland (Oregon), October 2016

• “What is New in Chen Dynasty (557–89) Court Poetry? Analysis of Poetic Improvisation on Assigned Topic (fude)”

American Oriental Society 226th Annual Meeting, Boston (Massachusetts), March 2016

Forming and Redefining Belles-Lettres: Harvard Graduate Student Conference on Chinese Literature, Cambridge (Massachusetts), March 2015

• “Negotiating Legitimacy and Power: Diplomatic Envoys in the Six Dynasties and Their Poetry”

Workshop: The Secret and the Sacred: The State and its Alternatives in Chinese Societies, Berkeley (California), March 2016

• “A Full-Blooming South: Chen Dynasty (557–89) Court Poetry and its Survival”

Stanford-Berkeley Graduate Student Conference on Pre-modern Chinese Humanities, Berkeley (California), April 2015

• “Textual Ruins: Taming the Violence of Jian’an (196–220) Poetry”

University of Colorado Boulder Asian Studies Graduate Association Conference, Boulder, March 2014

The 23rd Annual Columbia Conference on East Asia, New York, February 2014

• “Manipulation of Poetic Nature: Literary Reclusion and Community in Third-Century Chinese Poetry”

The 14th Harvard East Asian Society Conference, Cambridge (Massachusetts), March 2011