Wai-yee Li
Wai-yee Li is the 1879 Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University, where she has taught since 2000. Li’s research spans topics ranging from early Chinese thought and narrative to late imperial Chinese literature and culture. Her recent publications include The Promise and Peril of Things: Literature and Material Culture in Late Imperial China (Columbia University Press, 2022), A Topsy-Turvy World: Short Plays and Farces from the Ming and Qing Dynasties (Columbia University Press, 2023), an annotated translation of The Peach Blossom Fan (Oxford University Press, 2024), Gender and Friendship in Chinese Literature (Brill, 2024), and The Confucius Chronicles (Columbia University Press, 2026 forthcoming). Li has received fellowships and grants from the Harvard Society of Fellows, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, ACLS, NEH, Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, the American Academy in Berlin, and the Guggenheim Foundation. She has taught courses on Ming-Qing culture and literature, early Chinese thought and historiography, gender and sexuality, and premodern fiction and drama. In 2014, Li was elected by Academia Sinica to its List of Academicians.
Publications
Books:
Annotated translation of Ideal Matches (Yi zhong yuan 意中緣) by Li Yu (1611-1680). Oxford University Press, 2026 (forthcoming).
The Confucius Chronicles. Columbia University Press, 2026.
Annotated translation of The Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan 桃花扇) by Kong Shangren (1648-1718). Oxford University Press, 2024.
Friendship and Gender in Chinese Literature. Editor. Leiden: Brill, 2024.
A Topsy-Turvy World: Short Plays and Farces from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Co-editor (with Wilt Idema and Stephen West) and contributing translator. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023.
The Promise and Peril of Things: Literature and Material Culture in Late Imperial China. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022 (supported by publication grants from the CCK Foundation and Geiss Hsu Foundation). (Chinese translation 《明清文學中的物情與物累》by Huang Kangni and Wang Wenfei, forthcoming.)
Plum Shadows and Plank Bridge: Two Memoirs About Courtesans. (Annotated translation of Yingmei’an yiyu 影梅庵憶語, Banqiao zaji 板橋雜記, and stories and poems about Liu Rushi 柳如是 and Chen Yuanyuan 陳圓圓.) New York: Columbia University Press, 2020. (AAS Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation, 2022).
The Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan Reader: Key Topics in China’s Oldest Narrative History, co-authored with Stephen Durrant and David Schaberg. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020.
Keywords in Chinese Culture. Co-editor (with Yuri Pines) and contributing author. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2020.
The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature (1000 BCE-900 CE), co-editor (with Wiebke Denecke and Xiaofei Tian) and contributing author. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy, co-authored with Michael Nylan, Stephen Durrant, and Hans Van Ess. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016. (paperback 2018)
Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan: Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals (annotated translation of Zuozhuan), co-authored with Stephen Durrant and David Schaberg. 3 vols. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016 (Chinese Classics in Translation Series). (AAS Patrick D. Hanan Book Prize for Translation, 2018).
Women and National Trauma in Late Imperial Chinese Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. (AAS Joseph Levenson Prize [best book in the pre-1900 category], 2016) Revised edition and Chinese translation 《明清文學中的女子與國難》 by Wai-yee Li and Ted Ming-tak Hui, National Taiwan University Press, 2022. Revised edition in simplified characters, 2026 (Shanghai guji, forthcoming).
The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama, co-edited with C.T. Hsia and George Kao. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.
The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. (Chinese translation by Ted Ming-tak Hui, 2017)
Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, Co-editor (with Wilt Idema and Ellen Widmer) and contributing author. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006.
Enchantment and Disenchantment: Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993 (supported by a publication grant from the CCK Foundation).
Edited Journal Issues:
Cultural Others in Traditional Chinese Literature. Special issue in Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, Durham: Duke University Press (June 2020).
《中國文學裏的他者》。Special issue in Lingnan xuebao 嶺南學報 (Hong Kong, December 2020), revision and translation of the above.
Gender, Knowledge, and Textual Culture in Late Imperial China and Beyond. Special issue in Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture (June 2027, forthcoming).
Chapters in books:
“One Heart, Two Hearts, Many Hearts: Allegorical Dissonance in The Journey to the West,” in New Perspectives on The Journey to the West, edited by Zhou Yiqun.
“The New Discourse on Emotions in Love in Two Lives,” in Gender, Knowledge, and Textual Culture in Late Imperial China and Beyond (June 2027, forthcoming)
《戰亂中的性別與文學》、《清代以降的遺民記憶》in《近三百年中國文學史》，edited by David Wang, Hu Siao-chen, Mei Chia-ling. Taipei: National Taiwan University Press (forthcoming).
《性別與友道：晚明名妓文人的文字交》in Chunhua qiushi Qianxue yongnian 《春華秋實，潛學永年》(Festschrift for Sun Kang-i), 2 vols. edited by Lawrence Yim and Hu Siao-chen. Taipei: Yuncheng wenhua, 2024, 504-535.
“Taste as Experience and Metaphor in Honglou meng,” in The Sensorium in Ming-Qing Literature, eds. Suyong Son, Ariel Fox, Paize Kuleimans. Cornell University Press, forthcoming.
(In Chinese) 《桃花扇》的歷史再現與第二代記憶 (“The Representation of History and Second Generation Memory in Peach Blossom Fan”), translated by Ted Ming-tak Hui and Wai-yee Li, in《桃花扇新視野》(New Perspectives on Peach Blossom Fan), edited by Xu Yongming. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, forthcoming.
“Introduction”; “Literary Negotiations: Friendship in the World of Late Ming Courtesans,” in Friendship and Gender in Chinese Literature, ed. Wai-yee Li, 1-32, 230-267.
《晚明文學中的率真》 晚明文學中率真的修辭 (“The Rhetoric of Spontaneity in Late-Ming Literature”); 《吳偉業詩中的歷史與記憶》（History and Memory in the Poetry of Wu Weiye [1609-1672]) (translated by Ted Hui)。In 《西海遺珠：歐美明清詩文論集》(Gathered Pearls from the West: A Collection of Articles by Scholars of America [and Canada] and Europe on the Poetry of the Ming and Qing Dynasties), edited by Ye Ye and Yan Zinan. Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2023, pp. 200-222, 470-519.
“Pinning Flowers”; “Real Puppets”; “Sublime Jokes,” in A Topsy-Turvy World: Short Plays and Farces from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. New York: Columbia University Press, 2023, 69-158.
“On Reading The Story of the Stone,” in How to Read Chinese Fiction, edited by Shang Wei, Columbia University Press, forthcoming.
“Inconvenient and Unnecessary Details in Zuozhuan,” in Zuozhuan and Early Chinese Historiography, edited by Yuri Pines and Martin Kern. Brill, 2023, 125-52.
“Recalcitrant Things in Jin Ping Mei,” in Approaches to Teaching Jin Ping Mei, edited by Andrew Schonebaum. MLA, 2022, 105-22.
“Historical Prose,” in How to Read Chinese Prose, edited by Cai Zongqi, Columbia University Press, 2022, 43-65.
“The Problem of Genuineness in Li Zhi’s Writings,” in The Objectionable Li Zhi (1527-1602): Fiction, Criticism, and Dissent in Late Ming China, edited by Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline Lee, Haun Saussy. University of Washington Press, 2021, pp. 17-37.
“Introduction,” “Looking for the True Self in the Chinese Tradition,” in Keywords in Chinese Culture, edited by Wai-yee Li and Yuri Pines, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 2020, pp. ix-xlv, 335-80.
“Chi 癡, pi 癖, shi 嗜, hao 好: Genealogies of Obsession in Chinese Literature,” in China and the World—the World and China: A Transcultural Perspective, edited by Barbara Mittler, Joachim and Natasha Gentz, and Catherine Vance Yeh, 4 vols. Gosserberg: Ostasien Verlag, 2019, vol. 1, 13-32.
“Recurrent Concerns and Typical Moments in the Book of Songs,” in The Homeric Epics and the Chinese Book of Songs: Foundational Texts Compared, edited by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler. Cambridge Scholars’ Publishing, 2018, pp. 329-58.
“Why Do Classic Chinese Novels Matter?” in The China Questions: Critical Insights Into a Rising Power, edited by Jennifer Rudolph and Michael Szonyi. Harvard University Press, 2018, pp. 252-260.
“Poetry and Diplomacy in Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan,” in Poetic Culture from Antiquity Through the Tang, edited by Zongqi Cai. Columbia University Press, 2018, pp. 13-29.
“The Birth of Chinese Drama.” In the Program Brochure for the Production of “Snow in Midsummer” by the Royal Shakespeare Company. 2017.
“Anecdotal Barbarians in Early China,” in Between Philosophy and History: Rhetorical Uses of Anecdotes in Early China, edited by Sarah Queen and Paul van Els. State University of New York Press, 2017, pp. 113-144.
“June 2, 1927, October 7, 1969,” in A New Literary History of Modern China, edited by David Wang et al. Harvard University Press, 2017, pp. 319-324.
“Authorship,” “Figures,” “Post Tang Transmission of Classical Literature,” translation from Chinese of “Text and Commentary in the Medieval Period,” Introductory essays on “Traditional Genre Spectrum,” “Modern Perspectives on Genre,” and “Moments, Sites, Figures,” in The Oxford Handbook of Classical Literature (1000 BCE-900 CE), edited by Wiebke Denecke, Wai-yee Li, Xiaofei Tian. Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 123-131, 163-169, 235-240, 325-341, 360-376, 399-402, 450-470.
“Nostalgia and Resistance: Gender and the Poetry of Chen Yinke (1890-1969),” in Xiang Lectures on Chinese Poetry. McGill University, 2016, pp. 1-26.
“Hiding Behind a Woman: Contexts and Meanings in Early Qing Poetry,” in Hiddenness in Chinese Culture, edited by Paula Varsano. State University of New York Press, 2016, pp. 99-122.
“Gender, Memory, and Historical Judgment in Early Qing Yangzhou,” in Cities and Urban Life in China, 1400-1950, edited by Luca Gabbiani. Editions de l’Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient, Paris, 2016, pp. 107-128.
“Historical Understanding in ‘The Account of the Xiongnu’ in Shiji,” in Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography, edited by Dorothee Shaab-Hanke, Olga Lomova, Hans van Ess. Harrasowitz Verlag, 2015, pp. 79-102.
“Introduction,” ten introductory essays to ten plays, translation of the Yuan edition of The Zhao Orphan, translation of Tricking Kuai Tong, co-translation of Saving a Sister, On Horseback and Over the Garden Wall, and the Ming edition of The Zhao Orphan, in The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama, edited by Wai-yee Li, C.T. Hsia, and Karl Kao. Columbia University Press, 2014.
“Riddles, Concealment, and Rhetoric in Early China,” in Facing the Monarch: Modes of Advice in the Early Chinese Court, edited by Garret Olberding. Harvard University Asia Center, 2013, pp. 100-132.
(In Chinese)〈晚明時刻〉(“The Late Ming Moment”) in 《英語世界的湯顯祖研究論著選譯》 (Tang Xianzu [1550-1616] in English Language Scholarship), Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2013, pp. 28-64.
“Romantic Recollections of Women as Sources of Women's History,” in Covert and Overt Treasures: Sources of Women’s History in China, edited by Clara Ho. Chinese University Press (Hong Kong), 2012, pp. 337-368.
(In Chinese)〈華夷之辨與異族通婚〉 “Interracial Marriage and the Distinction of Chinese and Barbarians”, in 《談情説異》 (Of Love and Otherness). Taipei: Center for the Study of Foreign Cultures, Shih-hsin University, 2012, pp. 45-63.
“Pre-Qin Annals and Their Commentary Traditions,” in Oxford History of Historiography, Vol. 1, Beginnings to AD 600, edited by Andrew Feldherr and Grant Hardy. Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 415-439.
“Women Writers and Gender Boundaries During the Ming-Qing Transition,” in The Inner Quarters and Beyond: Women Writers from Ming through Qing, edited by Grace Fong and Ellen Widmer. Brill, 2010, pp. 179-213. (My Chinese translation, 〈明清之際的女性詩詞與性別界限〉, in Kuayue guimen 《跨越閨門》. Beijing University Press, 2014, pp. 173-199.)
“Shiji as Higher Narrative: The Idea of Authorship,” in Epic and Other Higher Narratives: Essays in Intercultural Studies, edited by Stephen Shankman and Amiya Dev. Pearson, 2010, pp. 159-197.
“Early Qing to 1723,” in Cambridge Literary History of China, edited by Stephen Owen and Kang-i Sun Chang. Cambridge University Press, 2010, pp. 152-244. (My Chinese translation of the chapter, 〈清初文學〉, in Jianchao zhongguo wenxue shi 《劍橋中國文學史》, Beijing: Sanlian, 2013, pp. 178-277.)
(In Chinese)〈說真: 《牡丹亭》與明末清初文化〉 (“On Being Genuine: Peony Pavilion from Late-Ming to Early-Qing”), in 《崑曲春三二月天--面對世界的崑曲與牡丹亭》(Kun Opera and The Peony Pavilion from Comparative Perspectives), edited by Hua Wei. Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2010, pp. 448-465.
(In Chinese)〈明末清初流離道路的難女形象〉 (“The Abducted Woman: Victimhood and Agency during the Ming-Qing Transition”), in 《空間與文化場域：空間移動之文化詮釋》 (Cultural Interpretations of Mobility), edited by Wang Ayling. Taipei: Center of Chinese Studies 漢學研究中心, 2009, pp. 143-186.
Entries on “Courtesans in Chinese History,” “Liu Rushi,” in Encyclopedia on Women’s History, edited by Bonnie Smith and Paul Ropp. Oxford University Press, 2008.
“Introduction: Existential, Literary, and Interpretive Choices,” “Confronting History and Its Alternatives in Early Qing Poetry” and “History and Memory in Wu Weiye’s (1609-1671) Poetry,” in Trauma and Transcendence in Early Qing Literature, edited by Wilt Idema, Wai-yee Li, and Ellen Widmer. Harvard University Asia Center, 2006, pp. 1-148.
“Women as Emblems of Dynastic Fall from Late-Ming to Late-Qing,” in Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation: From the Late-Ming to the Late-Qing and Beyond, edited by David Wang and Shang Wei. Harvard University Asia Center, 2005, pp. 93-150.
“Shishuo xinyu and the Emergence of Chinese Aesthetic Consciousness in the Six Dynasties,” in Chinese Aesthetics: The Orderings of Literature, the Arts, and the Universe in the Six Dynasties (3rd to 6th Century), edited by Zongqi Cai. Hawaii University Press, 2004, pp. 237-276.
“Languages of Love and Parameters of Culture in The Peony Pavilion and The Story of the Stone,” in Love and Emotions in Chinese Literature, edited by Halvor Eifring. Brill, 2003, pp. 233-270.
“On Becoming a Fish: Paradoxes of Immortality and Enlightenment in Chinese Literature,” in Self and Self-Transformation in the History of Religions, edited by David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa. Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 29-59.
(In Chinese)〈禍水、薄命、女英雄﹕作為明亡表徵之清代文學女性群像〉(“Femme-fatale, Victim, and Hero: Women as Emblems of Dynastic Collapse in Qing Literature”), in 《世變與維新--晚明與晚清的文學藝術》(Political Disorder and Cultural Renewal: Literature and Culture in Late Ming and Late Qing), edited by Hu Siao-chen. Academia Sinica, Institute of Literature and Philosophy, 2001, pp. 301-326.
“Full-length Vernacular Fiction,” in Columbia History of Chinese Literature, edited by Victor Mair. Columbia University Press, 2001, pp. 620-658.
“Between ‘Literary Mind’ and ‘Carving Dragons’: Order and Excess in Wenxin diaolong,” in A Chinese Literary Mind: Culture, Creativity, and Rhetoric in Wenxin diaolong, edited by Cai Zong-qi. Stanford University Press, 2001, pp. 193-225, 275-282.
“On Making Noise in ‘Qiwu lun’”; “The Crisis of Witnessing in Du Fu’s ‘A Song of My Thoughts When Going From the Capital to Fengxian: Five Hundred Words’”; “Mixture of Genres and Motives for Fiction in ‘The Story of Yingying’ ” in Ways With Words: Reading Texts From Early China, edited by Peter Bol, Stephen Owen, Willard Peterson, Pauline Yu. University of California Press, 2000, pp. 93-103, 165-170, 185-192.
“Knowledge and Skepticism in Ancient Chinese Historiography,” in The Limits of Historiography, edited by Christina Kraus. Brill, 1999, pp. 27-54.
“Dreams of Interpretation in Early Chinese Historical and Philosophical Writings,” in Dream Cultures: Toward a Comparative History of Dreaming, edited by David Shulman and Guy Stroumsa. Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 17-42.
“The Late-Ming Courtesan: Invention of a Cultural Ideal,” in Writing Women in Late Imperial China, edited by Ellen Widmer and K’ang-i Sun Chang. Stanford University Press, 1997, pp. 46-73, 428-434.
“The Fantastic as Metaphor: A Study of Hsi-yu pu (Supplement to Journey to the West),” in Essays in Commemoration of the Golden Jubilee of the Fung Ping Shan Library. Hong Kong: Fung Ping Shan Library, University of Hong Kong, 1982, pp. 248-280.
Journal Articles:
(In Chinese)〈華夷之辨、華夷之辯：從《左傳》談起〉，Lingnan Journal of Chinese Studies 《嶺南學報》13 (December 2020): 19-50.
“Introduction,” “Cultural Identity and Cultural Difference in Zuozhuan,” special issue on “Cultural Others in Traditional Chinese Literature,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, Durham: Duke University Press (June 2020).
(In Chinese) 〈懷舊與抗爭：獨立、自由、性別書寫與陳寅恪詩文〉 (“Nostalgia and Resistance: Independence, Freedom, and Gender in the Writings of Chen Yinke”), Modern Chinese Literature《中國現代文學》31(June 2017): 27-54.
Also included in 從傳統到現代的中國詩學 (From Tradition to Modernity: Poetic Transition from the Eighteenth Century to Early Twentieth Century), edited by Lin Tsung-cheng and Zhang Bowei. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2017, 497-528.
(In Chinese)〈女英雄的想像與歷史記憶〉(“Imagining Heroic Women and the Burden of Historical Memory”), Lingnan Journal of Chinese Studies 《嶺南學報》, Hong Kong (March 2015): 86-108. (Expanded version included in an edited volume in 2023?)
“Aesthetics and Politics: Poetry and Diplomacy in Zuozhuan,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, Durham: Duke University Press (November 2014): 242-262.
“Gardens and Illusions from Late Ming to Early Qing,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 72.2 (December 2012): 295-336.
(In Chinese)〈性別與清初歷史記憶：從揚州女子談起〉(“Gender and Historical Memory in Early Qing Yangzhou”), Taiwan Journal of East Asian Studies《臺灣東亞文明研究學刊》7.2 (December 2010): 290-344.
(In Chinese)〈世變與玩物: 略論清初文人審美風尚〉 (“The Discourse on Things and Early-Qing Literary-Aesthetic Sensibility”), Journal of the Institute of Literature and Philosophy 《中國文哲研究集刊》, Academia Sinica no. 33 (2009): 1-40.
“Heroic Transformations: Women and National Trauma in Early Qing Literature,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 59.2(December 1999): 363-443.
“The Collector, the Connoisseur, and Late-Ming Sensibility,” T’oung Pao, Vol. LXXXI (1995): 269-302.
“The Representation of History in The Peach Blossom Fan,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 115.3 (1995): 421-433.
“The Rhetoric of Spontaneity in Late-Ming Literature,” Ming Studies 35(August 1995): 32-52.
“The Idea of Authority in Records of the Historian,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54.2(December 1994): 345-405.
(In Chinese)〈警幻與以情悟道〉(“The Goddess Disenchantment and the Idea of Enlightenment Through Love in Chinese Culture”), Zhongwai wenxue 《中外文學》 (Zhongwai Literary Monthly), Vol. 22, No. 2 (July, 1993): 46-66.
“The Feminine Turn of Rhetoric in Chinese Literature,” The International Journal of Social Education 6 (1991): pp. 17-41. (Special issue on “Productions of Women: Gender and Education from East Asian Perspectives.”)
“Dream Visions of Transcendence in Chinese Literature and Paintings,” Asian Art 3 (1990): 52-78.