Christopher G. Rea, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Literature
Contact Information
Email: chris.rea(at)ubc.ca
[Please note that I am on leave from UBC until December 2012, while on a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Australian National University. During this time I am still accepting new graduate students.]
Mailing address, phone number, and fax through Dec. 2012:
Australian Centre on China in the World
ANU College of Asia & the Pacific
HC Coombs Building #9
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200
AUSTRALIA
Tel. +61 2 6125 0341
Fax +61 2 6257 1893
Permanent mailing address, phone number, and fax:
Dept. of Asian Studies
UBC Asian Centre
1871 West Mall
Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2
CANADA
Tel. +1 604 822 5428
Fax +1 604 822 8937
Upcoming Talk
May 4, University of Adelaide, Australia: "The Fine Art of Reviling: A Brief History of Invective in Modern China" (details)
Research Interests
Modern Chinese literature and drama since the late 19th century
Late Qing (1895-1911) and Republican era (1912-1949) print culture
Cinema, cartoons, manhua, and visual culture
Translation
Theories of comedy and laughter
Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang (see a brief video introduction to both authors)
See my article in China Heritage Quarterly and my post on The China Beat commemorating the centennials of Yang Jiang (b. 1911) and Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998), respectively. (Here's a slightly shorter version of the latter in Chinese.) See also a Toronto Star piece on Qian Zhongshu's view of the Nobel Prize, and a short item in Mingpao Monthly (in Chinese; co-written with Ji Jin) on a recent workshop I hosted at UBC on Qian Zhongshu and Yang Jiang.
Current Projects
A History of Laughter: Comic Culture in Modern China, 1895-1957 will be the first full-length study of the cultural politics of laughter in modern China. Spanning a period of turbulence stretching from the chaotic final years of the Qing dynasty through the Republican era to the early years of the People's Republic, this book asks why so many Chinese cultural figures' response to their reality was laughter, and why that laughter has subsequently been ignored and repressed. Drawing on a wealth of literary, cinematic, theatrical, and pictorial sources, the book reveals the vibrant "comic cultures" that history has forgotten. In doing so, it challenges a presumption implicit in much recent scholarship: namely, that Chinese modernity has mostly been experienced and expressed in plaintive terms.
Enter the Cultural Entrepreneur: The Business of Culture in China and Southeast Asia, 1900-1965. This collaborative research project, which I am co-directing with Nicolai Volland of the National University of Singapore, explores the impact of entrepreneurship on cultural agency in the Chinese cultural sphere from the late Qing dynasty up to the independence of Singapore. It proposes "cultural entrepreneurship" as a paradigm for explaining a pattern of agency distinguished by plurality (engaging in multiple cultural arenas, whether simultaneously or consecutively) and mobility (between geographic areas and fields of cultural production), arguing that singular categories such as "writer," "newspaperman," "filmmaker," and the like are inadequate to capture the complexities of cultural agency--both individual and institutional--during periods of rapid popularization of new mass media. Along with several leading scholars of literary and cultural history, we are completing a book that explores how cultural entrepreneurs "entered" Chinese cultural history during this period, as well as how they both enter and "exit" history as a global trope of modernity.
Education
M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., Columbia University
A.B. cum laude, Dartmouth College
Undergraduate Courses Taught at UBC
CHIN 411: Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature I (non-heritage)
CHIN 413: Introduction to Modern Chinese Literature II (non-heritage)
ASIA 351: Modern Chinese Fiction in Translation
ASIA 363 (prev. ASIA 360A): Fiction and Film from Modern Taiwan
ASIA 355: Chinese Cinema
Note that I will be on research leave and not teaching regular courses at UBC until Term 2 of 2012W (January 2013).
Selected Publications (* peer-reviewed)
Edited Book
Qian Zhongshu. Humans, Beasts, and Ghosts: Stories and Essays. Christopher G. Rea, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. (*) Read the first story.
(A collection of translated essays and short stories from Xie zai rensheng bianshang (1941) and Ren, shou, gui (1946), with a critical introduction. See the above links for an Amazon.com preview and the publisher's description. A brief video introduction to the book may be found here.)
Edited Journal Issues
Christopher G. Rea, ed. "Yang Jiang." A special issue of Renditions, no. 76 (Fall 2011). (*) Link to table of contents and extracts (HTML)
Christopher G. Rea and Nicolai Volland, eds. “Comic Visions.” A special issue of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 20: 2 (Fall 2008). (*)
Link to introduction (PDF) and abstracts (HTML)
Journal Articles
Christopher G. Rea. "'To Thine Own Self Be True': One Hundred Years of Yang Jiang." Renditions, no. 76 (Fall 2011), pp. 7-14. (*)
Christopher G. Rea. "Yang Jiang’s Conspicuous Inconspicuousness: A Centenary Writer in China’s ‘Prosperous Age.’" China Heritage Quarterly, 26 (June 2011).
Christopher G. Rea and Nicolai Volland. “Comic Visions of Modern China: Introduction.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 20: 2 (Fall 2008), pp. v-xviii. (*)
Christopher G. Rea. “Comedy and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Xu Zhuodai's Huaji Shanghai.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 20:2 (Fall 2008), pp. 40-91. (*) Abstract (HTML)
Christopher G. Rea. “‘I Envy You Your New Teeth and Hair’: Humor, Self-Awareness, and Du Fu’s Poetic Self-Image.” T’ang Studies, No. 23/24 (2005-2006), pp. 47-89. (*)
Lei Qinfeng [Christopher G. Rea]. "Cong keting dao zhanchang: lun Ding Xilin de kangzhan xiju Miaofeng shan (From the Parlor to the Battlefield: Ding Xilin's Wartime Comedy Mount Miaofeng). Dangdai zuojia pinglun (Contemporary Writers' Review), Jan. 2006, pp. 124-131.
Book Chapters
"'He'll Roast All Subjects That Might Need the Roasting': Puck and Mr. Punch in 19th-c. China." Punch: A Transcultural Reading. Hans Harder and Barbara Mittler, eds. Berlin: Springer, forthcoming in 2012.
Lei Qinfeng [Christopher G. Rea]. "Qian Zhongshu de zaoqi chuangzuo" (Qian Zhonghu's Early Creative Works). In Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de shi yu xue: xiang Xia Zhiqing xianzheng zhiqing (History and Learning in Modern Chinese Literature: A Tribute to C.T. Hsia). David Der-wei Wang, ed. Taipei: Lianjing chubanshe, 2010. A simplified character version was published in the PRC journal Wenyi zhengming and has been posted online here.
Lei Qinfeng [Christopher G. Rea]. “Cong keting dao zhanchang: lun Ding Xilin de kangzhan xiju” (From the Parlor to the Battlefield: Ding Xilin’s Wartime Comedies) [in Chinese]. In Wenxue xinglü yu shijie xiangxiang (Traveling Chinese Literatures and World Imaginations). David Der-wei Wang and Ji Jin, eds. Nanjing: Jiangsu Educational Press, 2007, pp. 165-187.
Online at: www.chinese-thought.org/whyj/004778.htm
Lei Qinfeng [Christopher G. Rea]. "'Zuori fei jinri': Tian Zhuangzhuang Xiaocheng zhi chun zhong lishi yuyang de youling zaixian" (Hauntings of Historical Desire in Tian Zhuangzhuang's Springtime in a Small Town [in Chinese]. In Xiangxiang de benbang: xiandai wenxue shiwu lun (National Imaginaries: 15 Perspectives on Modern Chinese Literature). David Der-wei Wang and Kim Chew Ng, eds. Taipei: Rye Field Publishing, 2005, pp. 161-180.
Translations
Shamlet: A Ten-Act Play by Lee Kuo-Hsiu. A translation with introduction prepared for Shakespearean Adaptations in East Asia: A Critical Anthology of Shakespearean Plays in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Alexander C.Y. Huang and Ryuta Minami, eds. (Under contract with Eureka Press, U.K.; distributed in U.S. by Routledge) (*)
Xu Zhuodai. "The Secret Room." Renditions, no. 77 & 78 (Spring/Autumn 2012), forthcoming.
Yang Jiang. "Heart's Desire: Act I." Renditions, no. 76 (Autumn 2011), pp. 15-33. (*)
Yang Jiang. "What a Joke." Renditions, no. 76 (Autumn 2011), pp. 34-67. (*)
Ding Xilin. “Three Dollars in National Currency: A One-Act Comedy by Ding Xilin," with critical introduction. Asian Theatre Journal, Vol. 25, no. 2 (Fall 2008), pp. 173-192. (*)
Full text (PDF)
Xu Zhuodai. “The Fiction Material Wholesaler.” Renditions, 67 (Spring 2007), pp. 47-62. (*)
Book Reviews
Yu Hua. Brothers: A Novel. Tr. Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas. New York: Pantheon, 2009. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Centre (online), October 2011. [click above link to read review]
Alexander Huang. Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. China Review International, 16:4 (2009), pp. 521-526. [click above link to download a PDF copy of review]
Selected Fellowships and Awards
ANU Australian Centre on China in the World Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2012
SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2010-2012
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Workshop Grant, 2010
Hampton Research Fund Grant, UBC, 2009-2011
Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Early Career Scholar, UBC, 2009-2010
ACLS/CCK “New Perspectives on Chinese Culture and Society” Grant, 2009
Visiting Fellowship, Harvard University, 2006-2008
Whiting Foundation Dissertation Completion Fellowship (declined), 2007-2008
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, 2007-2008
Faculty Fellowship, Columbia University, 2002-2007
Weatherhead Institute Ph.D. Training Grant, Columbia University, 2003, 2006
Fulbright Scholar (Taiwan), 2004-2005
Foreign Languages and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, Columbia University, 2002-2003
Presidential Scholar, Dartmouth College, June 1999
High Honors in the Major, Dartmouth College, June 1999
Pray Modern Languages Prize, Dartmouth College, June 1999
Willy Gorrissen Prize in Asian Studies, Dartmouth College, June 1999
Chinese Studies Web Resources
UBC Department of Asian Studies: www.asia.ubc.ca
Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center: mclc.osu.edu
Scripta Sinica (searchable full-text Chinese classics and histories): www.sinica.edu.tw/ftms-bin/ftmsw3
Heidelberg Digital Archive for Chinese Studies (must request password, no charge): www.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/dachs/
Modern Chinese Print Culture Research Unit at Cheng-chi U.: printculture.nccu.edu.tw
Taiwan MOE Chinese Language Dictionary: dict.revised.moe.edu.tw
Lin Yutang Chinese-English Dictionary of Modern Usage: humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/Lexis/Lindict/
Chinese Studies Library Catalogues
UBC: www.library.ubc.ca
Harvard: lib.harvard.edu
Columbia: www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/
UC Berkeley & UC system: www.lib.berkeley.edu
Academia Sinica: las.sinica.edu.tw/*cht
PRC National Library: www.nlc.gov.cn/GB/channel1/index.html
Taiwan National Library: www.ncl.edu.tw/mp.asp
Shanghai Library: www.library.sh.cn
