Lei Yang

Education & Professional History

Capital Normal University (Beijing), BA; University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA; University of Pennsylvania, PhD

Dissertation: “Building Blocks of Chinese Historiography: A Narratological Study of Shi ji (Records of the Historian)”

Thesis: “The Effects of Recasts and Explicit Feedback on Chinese Language Acquisition in the Task-based Classroom”

My main areas of research are historiography and literature of early China (-220CE), which do not always have a clear-cut boundary. Although my research subjects are Chinese texts, my work is interdisciplinary involving narratology and hermeneutics.

I’m particularly interested in fostering dialogues between Western frameworks and Chinese historical narratives. My current book project, Retelling the Past: Narrative Devices in Early Chinese Historiography, provides the first systematic narratological analysis of the most influential histories from early China by focusing on Shiji (Records of the Historian), a monumental text completed by Sima Qian (145–86 BCE). Drawing on Gérard Genette’s framework, my book treats histories as narratives, challenging the Chinese traditional literary method of intentional reading and answering the critical question of how narrative as a form affects the rhetorical function of histories. In future projects, I will explore the evolution of interpretative modes and historical novels in premodern China.

In addition to Shiji, my existing publications center on several most important historical works compiled between the 500 BCE-200CE, such as the Zuozhuan (Zuo Commentary), Guoyu (Discourse of the States), Hanshu (History of the Former Han). The rest of my publications are on language pedagogy and acquisition. My research has been funded by The Tang Center for Early China at Columbia University.

I teach a wide range of translation courses on Chinese literature and culture, such as Chinese Vision of the Past, Biographies of Heroes, Heroines, & Lives to Learn From, and Classical Chinese Thought: Wisdom and Advice from Ancient Masters. In addition, I taught all levels of Chinese language courses. With the overall goal of preparing students to be global citizens, my classes encourage students to think critically and deeply about the differences as well as commonalities between China and the United States, the East and the West, prompting them to view their own lives, and the world from different perspectives.

Forthcoming:

“The Modes of Representation in Paradigms of Early Chinese Historical Writings,” special issue of Journal of the Philosophy of History, invited article.

“Jade Suits and Transcendence in the Han Tombs,” Asian Archeology.

Selected publications:

2021  “Ban Gu.” The Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa (co-edited by Daniel Potts, Ethan Harkness, Jason Neelis, and Roderick McIntosh), Invited Contribution, Under contract with Wiley.

2021   “Sima Qian.” The Encyclopedia of Ancient History: Asia and Africa (co-edited by Daniel Potts, Ethan Harkness, Jason Neelis, and Roderick McIntosh), Invited Contribution, Under contract with Wiley.

2021  “Predictability and Uncertainty: A Structural Analysis of Characterization in Shiji,” International Comparative Literature, 2021(1), 30-45.

2020  “Comprehensible Narratives and Connected Grammar: Textbook Design for Classical Chinese as a Foreign Language.” Hanyu jiaoxue yanjiu漢語教學研究[Chinese as a Second Language], 55:3 (2020), 193-207.

2020 “漢語女性第三人稱指代詞“她”字的發展、使用和教學” [The Origin, Usage, and Teaching of the Third-Person Female Pronoun Ta in Chinese], Hanyu jiaoxue yanjiu漢語教學研究[Chinese as a Second Language], 55:2 (2020), 93-105.

2020 “From Evil Women to Dissolute Rulers: Changes in Gender Representation across Zuozhuan, Guoyu, and Shiji,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 3(2020), 1-16.

2020  “How versus What: Changes in Narrative Speed from Zuozhuan, Shiji to Hanshu,” Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies 68 (2020), 1-27.

2019 “Who Was Sick: Teaching Lu Xun’s Masterpiece Medicine 到底誰病了？—魯迅名篇《藥》的教學,” in Tradition and Transition: Teaching Chinese Culture Overseas 傳統與現代：海外中文文化教學, ed. Liu G. & Wang H., Beijing: Beijing University Press, 73-80.

2017  Book Review: Durrant, Stephen, Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and Hans van Ess. The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy. University of Washington Press, Early China 40 (2017), 1-5.