I completed a BA in Chinese Language and Literature at Fujian Normal University in 2023, and completed an MA in Critical Theory at King’s College London in 2024. During my undergraduate, I was supervised by the contemporary Chinese avant-garde writer Dr Chen Xiwo, and published a novella, 垂生(Chui Sheng). At King’s, under the supervision of Dr John Connor, I wrote a distinctive dissertation on Wang Xiaobo’s novella The Golden Age, arguing it functions as an ironic “rewriting” of the Cultural Revolution, which is a self-reconciliation of the collective trauma experienced by the sent-down youth (zhiqing).

My current PhD project is an extension of my master’s research, with “rewriting” as a key concept. My primary research lies in contemporary Chinese literary thought and its relationship to Left politics. I concentrate on comparing shifts in Chinese intellectuals’ novelistic practices before and after 1978, examining how radical utopian ideals, deeply embedded cultural traditions, and Western humanist and liberal currents have constituted three fundamental forces shaping China’s political-cultural configurations of modernity since 1949.

My PhD project is jointly funded by King’s and the China Scholarship Council (K-CSC), and supervised by Dr John Connor (Department of English) and Dr Rosa Mucigant (Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures).