Department of History

Yuji Xu

Position title: TA: Hist Sci 150 with Professor Devin Kennedy

Email: yuji.xu@wisc.edu

Address:
Advisor: Viren Murthy

Yuji Xu headshot

Biography

I am currently pursuing my Ph.D. degree in East Asian history (with a minor in modern American studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research interests include the cultural and intellectual history of modern China, Ming-Qing Buddhism, critical theory, Hong Kong literature, media studies, and cultural studies.

I became greatly interested in Lacanian psychoanalysis and applied it in analyzing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels in my undergraduate’s thesis. In obtaining my first master’s degree in modern Chinese literature and culture in Hong Kong, I delved into Manchukuo writer Gu Ding and his novels by employing Pan-Asianism and Takeuchi Yoshimi’s narratives of revolutionary subjectivity and self-negation. Then I specifically explored the tensions between the Confucian ideology “Kingly Way” and the modern capitalist (re)distribution in Manchukuo and between the sentimental rhetoric and empire’s conquest of surplus value, which constituted my second master’s degree thesis in the field of modern Chinese political and intellectual history.

Education

Ph.D. Candidate, Chinese History (Modern China), City University of Hong Kong, 2023 (Withdrawn)
M.Phil., Chinese Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2020
M.A., Chinese Culture, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Distinction, 2017
Exchange, Theatre Arts, Chinese Culture University, Taipei, 2013
B.A., Literature of Theater, Film & TV, Zhejiang University of Media and Communications, Honors, 2015

Field

  • East Asian History

MA Title

  • “Misread Meiji Japan, Overcome Republican China: Rethinking Zheng Xiaoxu’s Political Philosophy”

Selected Publications

Research Articles & Book Chapters

  • Written with Viren Murthy. “Rethinking Philosophy in the Age of Science: Tan Sitong and Zhang Taiyan.” Chinese Thought from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century, edited by Selusi Ambrogio and Dawid Rogacz. Forthcoming. Vol. 3 of Chinese Philosophy and Its Thinkers: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.
  • Written with Dechun Zhang. “When Nationalism Encounters the COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding Chinese Nationalism From Media Use and Media Trust.” Global Society 37, no. 2 (2023): 176-196.
  • “製造稚感、重塑日常：論西西詩歌中的香港「抒/書」情 (Making the childishness and reshaping everyday life: on lyricizing Hong Kong in Xi Xi’s poetry).” 方圓: 文學及文化專 刊 O-Square: Literary and Cultural Journal 15, (Winter 2022): 174-209.
  • “虹口的芥川龍之介 (Ryūnosuke Akutagawa in Hongkew).” In 虹口源 (Hongkew origin), edited by Li Tiangang and Wang Qiyuan, 148-159. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 2021.
  • “地方史書寫的可能與實踐——兼評《保釐雲間》與上海地方 (The possibility and practice in writing local history: on Baoli yunjian and Shanghai).” 上海地方志 Shanghai Chronicles, no.1 (2021): 76-79.
  • “看見/不見的聲與日常流動的景：另一種重構中國公園文化的可能 (The in/visible voice and the landscape of everyday mobility: another approach to reconstruct the public park culture in China).” 思逸 Siyi Journal, no. 5 (2017): 13-15.
  • “空間、日常與節慶：「模擬」時空裂縫中的都市檔案——論董啟章的《V 城繁勝錄》中的香港想象 (Space, everyday life, and festival: making urban archive in the time-space hiatus — on the vision of Hong Kong in Dong Qizhang’s Visible Cities).” 關東學刊 Guandong Journal, no. 12 (2016): 51-58.

Book Reviews and Review Articles

  • “Guanyin as Mediation: A New Study of Women’s Buddhist Devotion in Late Imperial China.” Studies in Chinese Religions 9, no.1 (2023): 99-108. [Chinese translation: “成（/不）為觀音：評李雨航《成為觀音：晚期帝制中國佛教女信眾的藝術奉獻》,” 華林國際佛學學刊 Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 6, no.2 (2023): 330–344.]
  • “白話文的軟肋：評《紫羅蘭的魅影：周瘦鵑與上海文學文化，1911-1949 (Vernacular Chinese’s Achilles heel: On The enchanting shadow of the Violet—Zhou Shoujuan and Shanghai literary culture, 1911-1949).” 二十一世紀 Twenty-First Century, no.187 (2021):150-158.

Other Scholarly Writings

Selected Awards

  • Outstanding Academic Performance Award for Research Degree Students, 2022/23 (City University of Hong Kong)
  • Outstanding Academic Performance Award for Research Degree Students, 2021/22 (City University of Hong Kong)
  • Master of Arts in Chinese Culture Scholarship, 2016/17 (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)
  • Outstanding Graduates Honours Recipient of Zhejiang Province, 2015 (Zhejiang Provincial Department of Education, China)
  • Outstanding Graduates Honours Recipient, 2015 (Zhejiang University of Media and Communications)
  • Merit Student, 2014 (Zhejiang University of Media and Communications)
  • Outstanding Student Award, the School of Arts, 2014 (Zhejiang University of Media and Communications)
  • Outstanding Student Scholarship of Zhejiang Radio and Television Group, 2013(Zhejiang University of Media and Communications)