Wai-yee Li
Harvard University · Language and Literatures of Asia
Active 1989–2025
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About
Wai-yee Li is a Professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University, affiliated with the Committee on Regional Studies—East Asia. Her research interests encompass Chinese literature from early Chinese thought and narrative to late imperial Chinese literature and culture. She is based at Harvard's Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, located at 2 Divinity Avenue, Room 228. Professor Li's work focuses on the rich literary traditions of China, exploring their historical development and cultural significance within the broader context of Chinese history and society.
Research topics
- Medicine
- Internal medicine
- Surgery
- Dermatology
- Oncology
Selected publications
The Promise and Peril of Things
Columbia University Press eBooks · 2022-05-13 · 4 citations
book1st authorCorrespondingWai-yee Li traces notions of the pleasures and dangers of things in the literature and thought of late imperial China. She considers core oppositions—people and things, elegance and vulgarity, real and fake, lost and found—to tease out the ambiguities of material culture.
Cultural Identity and Cultural Difference in <i>Zuozhuan</i>
Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture · 2020-04-01 · 3 citations
article1st authorCorrespondingAbstract There is no fixed categorical term for barbarians in Chinese. Specific groups are identified as “aliens” or “cultural others” through words like Man 蠻, Yi 夷, Rong 戎, and Di 狄, but all four terms can be specific or categorical. It is often said that the us-versus-them formula in Zuozhuan (and early Chinese texts in general) is cultural rather than ethnic, but precise definitions of cultural difference can be elusive. This article begins with a discussion of the historical basis for defin…
Columbia University Press eBooks · 2023-10-03 · 1 citations
bookA Topsy-Turvy World presents English translations of shorter late Ming and early Qing plays. Satirical and often earthy, these mostly one-act plays provide a glimpse of Chinese daily life and mores even as they question or subvert the boundaries of social, moral, and political order.
2020-06-15 · 1 citations
book-chapter1st authorCorrespondingLiterary Negotiations: Friendship in the World of Late Ming Courtesans
2024-09-17
book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
Frequent coauthors
- 9 shared
Vesa Kaartinen
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- 6 shared
John F. Reinisch
University of Southern California
- 5 shared
Marek Dudáš
University of Glasgow
- 4 shared
Nayana Vora
City Of Hope National Medical Center
- 4 shared
Jugpal S. Arneja
British Columbia Children's Hospital
- 4 shared
Claudia Malic
Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario
- 4 shared
Yuman Fong
- 4 shared
Vishwas Parekh
City of Hope
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