Yuji Xu

Biography

I am pursuing a Ph.D. in East Asian History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with a minor in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology (HSMT). My research interests include the trans-Pacific exchange of technology and knowledge during the Cold War, modern Chinese literature and culture, and critical theory. My MA thesis, titled “From Computing Cosmopolitanism to People’s Computing: The Rise of Chinese Cybernetics and Chinese Computers, 1935-1966,” examines the intellectual circulation of cybernetics and the evolution of computing technology in socialist China during the Cold War period. For my doctoral project, I seek to trace the contours of British Hong Kong’s electronics industrial revolution during the Cold War and to examine the causes of its decline after 1997.

Education

Ph.D. Candidate, Chinese History (Modern China), City University of Hong Kong (Withdrawn)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

Field

• East Asian History
• History of Science, Medicine, and Technology

MA Title

•  “From Computing Cosmopolitanism to People’s Computing: The Rise of Chinese Cybernetics and Chinese Computers, 1935-1966”

Selected Publications

Research Articles & Book Chapters

• “The Chinese Inner Studies Institute,” “The Shanghai Buddhist Studies Publishing House,” “The Jetavana Hermitage.” In Encyclopedia of Hangzhou Buddhist Culture, edited by Ven. Guangquan, Albert Welter, and Jiang Wu. Leiden: Brill, 2026.
• Written with Dechun Zhang. “Media Use, Trust, and Nationalism: The Role of News and Social Media in Shaping Chinese Nationalism During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” In Routledge International Handbook of the COVID-19 Pandemic in China, edited by Cary Wu and Yidi Zhai. Routledge, 2026.
• “Ink Paintings and Buddhist Dharma: A Reappraisal of ‘Four Monk as Painters’ in China and Beyond.” Buddhist Studies 42, no.1 (2025): 352-378. [Chinese]
• Written with Viren Murthy. “Rethinking Philosophy in the Age of Science: Tan Sitong and Zhang Taiyan.” In Chinese Thought from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century, edited by Selusi Ambrogio and Dawid Rogacz. 65-90. Vol. 3 of Chinese Philosophy and Its Thinkers: From Ancient Times to the Present Day. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.
• “Creating Childlike Sensibility, Reshaping the Everyday: On the Expression/Writing of Hong Kong Affect in Xi Xi’s Poetry.” O-Square: Literary and Cultural Journal 15, (Winter 2022): 174-209. [Chinese]
• “Ryūnosuke Akutagawa in Hongkew.” In Hongkew Origin, edited by Li Tiangang and Wang Qiyuan, 148-159. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 2021. [Chinese]
• “The Possibility and Practice of Writing Local History: On Baoli yunjian and Shanghai Locality.” Shanghai Chronicles, no.1 (2021): 76-79. [Chinese]
• “The In/visible Voice and the Landscape of Everyday Mobility: An Alternative Reconstruction of Chinese Park Culture.” Siyi Journal, no. 5 (2017): 13-15. [Chinese]
• “Space, Everyday life, and Festivity: Urban Archives in A ‘Simulated’ Temporal Hiatus— Imagining Hong Kong in Dung Kai-cheung’s Visible Cities).” Guandong Journal, no. 12 (2016): 51-58. [Chinese]

Book Reviews and Review Articles

• Review of Angela Ki Che Leung, Imagining the South: Environment, Body, Disease, and Globalization in Early Modern South China. East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal, under review.
• Review of Q. Edward Wang, The Birth of Modern Chinese Historical Consciousness: Inventing China Through History. Chinese Studies in History 58, no.1 (2025): 83-88.
• “From ‘Looking Awry’ to the ‘Parallax View’: A Reading Approach to Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution.” O-Square: Literary and Cultural Journal 23, (Winter 2024): 132-161. [Chinese]
• “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.
• “Vernacular Chinese’s Achilles heel: On The Enchanting Shadow of the Violet—Zhou Shoujuan and Shanghai Literary Culture, 1911-1949).” Twenty-First Century, no.187 (2021): 150-158. [Chinese]

Other Scholarly Writings

• Academic Dialogue (co-authored with Viren Murthy, Wang Hui, and Saul Thomas). “Rethinking the Significance of the Russian and Chinese Revolutions: A Dialogue with Wang Hui.” Journal of Labor and Society 27, 2 (2024): 275-296.
• Academic Essay. “The Secular as Sacred: Dongzhen Temple and Five Strongholds in the Traditional Chinese State Sacrifice Ceremony.” From the Ground Up: Buddhism & East Asian Religions. February 2023.
• Academic Interview. “Lotus Lantern and the Making of the First Commercial Animated Film in Mainland China—An Interview with Animator Chang Guangxi.” Association for Chinese Animation Studies. January 3, 2018.

Translations

Translation of English into Chinese

• Chinese translation of Kenny Kwok Kwan Ng’s “The Migrant Voice: The Politics of Writing Home between the Sinophone and Anglophone Worlds.” O-Square: Literary and Cultural Journal 25, (Summer 2025): 148-165.
• Chinese translation of Kenny Kwok Kwan Ng’s book chapter “Love in the Time of Revolution,” in The Lost Geopoetic Horizon of Li Jieren: The Crisis of Writing Chengdu in Revolutionary China): in progress.

Selected Awards

•  F. Hilary Conroy Award, The Association for Asian Studies, 2026
• Program Fund, The Eighth Glorisun International Intensive Program on Buddhist Studies, 2025
• 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)

Courses Taught as TA

• HIS 201: The Historian’s Craft [The Camera as Historian] (Spring 2026)
• History Lab (Fall 2025)
• ILS 202: Western Culture: Science, Technology, Philosophy II (Spring 2025)
• HIS SCI 150: The Digital Age (Fall 2024)