Yiju Huang

Ph.D.

Yiju Huang, Summer Modern Languages and Literatures Chair.

Associate Professor of Chinese
Lowenstein 426-D
212-639-6759
[email protected]

SPRING 2024 Office hours (LC): 
R 1:30 – 3:30 PM (zoom) and by appointment

  • B.A. in English, Shaan'xi Normal University (China)
    M.A. and Ph.D. in EALC, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  • Psychoanalysis, trauma and memory studies
    Modern and contemporary Chinese literature
    Chinese visual and material culture in the modern period

  • A scholar of modern Chinese literature and culture, Yiju Huang is interested in exploring the intersection of deep sociopolitical transformations and shifting paradigms of aesthetic productions. Her book, Tapestry of Light: Aesthetic Afterlives of the Cultural Revolution (Brill, 2014), offers an account of the psychic, intellectual, and cultural aftermath of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Drawing on a wide range of works including fiction, memoir, painting and film, she explores links between history, trauma and aesthetic representation. Yiju has ongoing interests in classical Chinese literature and philosophy and their influence on modern and contemporary China. She is currently working on a book manuscript on the spiritual dimension of Chinese literary modernity.

  • Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism: Chinese Thought and Literature
    Masterpieces of Chinese Film: Theory and Texts
    Aesthetics and Politics: Modern Chinese Literature
    Approaches to Chinese Literature 
    Intermediate Chinese
    Intercultural Theory: The "Contact Zone" 
    Trauma Theory

  • Books 

    Tapestry of Light: Aesthetic Afterlives of the Cultural Revolution (Brill, 2014).

    Journal Articles and Book Chapters 

    “Loss and Absence in Still Life,” Senses of Cinema (January 2022 Issue 100).

    “Of Emptiness and Revolution: The Other Lu Xun,” Prism (2020) 17 (1): 35–56.

    “Masterworks of Jia Pingwa and Chen Zhongshi: Temporalities of Modernity,” Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature, Routledge Press (August, 2018).

    “Trauma Theory and Chinese Antiquity,” Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis (SEA) (July 2016 Issue).

    “Ghosts and Their Contemporary Return: the Case of Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day,” Neohelicon (Vol.43, Issue 1).

    “A Buddhist Perspective: Trauma and Reincarnation in Mo Yan’s Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC) (Fall 2016 Issue).

    “On Transference: Alain Badiou and the Chinese Cultural Revolution,” Comparative Literature Studies (CLS) (Vol. 51, Issue 1).

    “By Way of Melancholia: Remembrance of Tiananmen Square Incident in Summer Palace,” Asian Cinema 21(1) (Spring/Summer 2010).

    “(Re) Creating Modern Chinese Music: Yang Ying, Erhu, and World Music,” Modern Art Asia 2 (Feb 2010).  

    “Weaving a Dark Parody: A Psychoanalytical Reading of Zhang Yimou’s Curse of the Golden Flower,” Film International (Vol. 6, Issue 2).

    “A Man Awakened from Dreams: Rereading the Modern Girl Image in A Fool’s Love by Tanizaki Jun'ichiro” Graduate Journal of Asian Pacific Studies, Vol. 5, no. 2, August 2007 

    Essays and Interviews 

    (In Chinese)〈常与无常：丰子恺艺术精神探幽〉(“Constant & Change: On Feng Zikai’s Aesthetic Spirit”), in 中美印象(US-China Perception Monitor): http://cn3.uscnpm.org/model_item.html?action=view&table=article&id=22062

    “Academic Reading” in Reflections on Academic Lives: Identities, Struggles, and Triumphs in Graduate School and Beyond, eds. Staci Zavattaro and Shannon Orr (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 

    “Plain, Time, and Catastrophe: A Conversation with Chen Zhongshi,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center, July 2013: http://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/chen-zhongshi/

    “‘There Still Lingers a Number of Ghosts’: An Interview on the Cultural Revolution.” Yiju Huang interviewed by Nicholas Haggerty, Commonweal (5/9/16): https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/interview-cultural-revolution-yiju-huang-fordham-alain-badiou-yiching-wu