Graduate Students

Kaia Johnson's research focuses on gender and sexuality in Ming & Qing dynasty literature. Before coming to Harvard, she studied Chinese Language and Culture as well as Psychology at U.C. Berkeley, before earning her M.A. in Chinese literature at...

Noah Weber studies Chinese aesthetic thought on language, writing, and script and articulates its relevance to modern and contemporary Sinophone literature. He is also interested in writing technology, print history, and calligraphy. Noah holds an M.A. in...

Yu Xie studies the legal history of pre-modern Korea. She received her B.A. in Korean Language and Literature from Peking University and her M.A. in Korean History from Seoul National University. Her master’s thesis focused on death penalty cases...

Kent (Bowen) Zheng is interested in historiography, state formation, and rhetorics of legitimacy in medieval China. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 2022, where he joint-majored in Historical Studies and Classical Studies. Working on his senior...

Emily Lopez studies contemporary Japanese literature from the 1960s to the 1980s, focusing on representations of activism, violence, and resistance. She earned her B.A. in Japanese from the University of California, Davis, in 2020, followed by an M.A. in...

Ben Hales entered Harvard’s History and East Asian Languages (HEAL) program in 2024. He researches the modern history of China’s relationship with Central Asia, focussing in particular on settler-indigenous and sedentary-pastoral relations from the 1940s...

Crystal Cheng's research revolves around early modern Japanese theater, literature, and visual culture, with a particular focus on the portrayal of murders and suicides of female characters. Her work aims to explore how the trope of selfless, sacrificial...

Mayako’s primary interest is understanding the modes and patterns of colonial and post-colonial interactions across Japan and Korea. In her master’s thesis, she explored some of these complex formations under imperial war mobilization in Korea, i.e. late...

Emily Wan received her B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and spent one year as a Fulbright Fellow at Waseda University. Her research focuses on renga (Japanese medieval linked verse), a collaboratively, spontaneously, and orally composed...

Julie Yau Lee Chan is a student of early modern Chinese literature. Her research interests revolve around theatre, performance, and media studies. Prior to joining Harvard, she received her B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature from the Chinese...