GARY G. XU

徐 鋼

2006-present University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Associate Professor (with tenure) of Chinese Literature, Comparative Literature, Cinema Studies, and Criticism

Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

Unit for Cinema Studies

Program in Comparative and World Literature

Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory

Research/Teaching Areas: Chinese Literature; Chinese Cinema; Critical Theories; East Asian Cultures

Courses:

EALC 135 Understanding East Asian Cultures and Societies

EALC 275 Intro. to Masterpieces of East Asian Literature

EALC 308 Popular Chinese Literature

EALC 398 Undergraduate Seminar: Contemporary Chinese Cinema

EALC 412 Modern Chinese Literature in Translation

EALC 490 Love and Sexuality in Chinese Literature and Film

EALC 550 Graduate Seminar: Readings in Chinese Literature

2001-2006 University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Assistant Professor

1999-2001 Bard College & Simon’s Rock College of Bard, New York & Massachusetts

Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese Language and Literature

1998-1999 Columbia University, Preceptor

1994-1996 University of Iowa, Lecturer

Education

2002 Columbia University, New York City, New York

Ph.D., East Asian Languages and Cultures

Dissertation: “The Sentimental Education of Chinese Modernity: Qing in Chinese Fiction from the Late Ming to the Turn of the Millennium”

Professor David Der-wei Wang, Committee Chair

1999 Columbia University

M. Phil.

Areas of Concentration: Modern Chinese Literature and Film, Ming-Qing Fiction, Japanese Literature of the Edo-Period

1994 The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

M.A., East Asian Languages and Literature

1988 Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China

B.A., Chinese Language and Literature

Selected Publications in English

Books:

· Sinascape: Contemporary Chinese Cinema. Lanham, MD: Roman & Littlefield, 2007.

· Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture: vol.6, Asia and Pacific Oceania. Co-Editor (with Vinay Dharwadker). Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007. Winner of the 2008 Ray and Pat Brown Award for Best Reference/Primary Source Collection in Popular and American Culture.

Articles:

· “The Writer as a Historical Figure of Modern China: Ye Zhaoyan’s Passionate Memory and Fictional History,” Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 42:1, forthcoming.

· “Remaking East Asia, Outsourcing Hollywood,” in Leon Hunt and Leung Wing-Fai, ed., East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film. London: I. B. Tauris, 2008,

· “Meinu Jingji/China’s Beauty Economy: Buying Looks, Shifting Value, and Changing Place.” First author (with Susan Feiner). Feminist Economics 13: 3-4 (July 2007), 307-323.

· “Doubled Configuration: Reading Su Weizhen’s Theatricality in Post-Martial-Law Taiwan,” in David D. W. Wang and Carlos Rojas, ed., Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, 233-252.

· “Where Has the Aura Gone? Reflections on Cultural Studies, Neoliberalism, and Literature as the Auratic Event,” Concentric 32:2 (July 2005), 15-40.

· “Ethics of Form: Qing and Narrative Excess in Guwangyan,” in David Wang and Wei Shang, ed., From the Late Ming to the Late Qing: Dynastic Decline and Cultural Innovation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005, 235-263.

· “The Gongfu of Kungfu Hustle,” Synoptique: The Journal of Film and Film Studies, 10 (August 2005). (http://www.synoptique.ca/core/en/articles/xu_gongfu/

· “Remaking East Asia, Outsourcing Hollywood,” Senses of Cinema, 34 (March 2005). (http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/05/34/remaking_east_asia.html)

· “The Pedagogical as the Political: Ideology of Globalization and Zhang Yimou’s Not One Less,” The Communication Review, 6:4 (December 2003), 327-340.

· “Flowers of Shanghai: Visualizing Ellipses and (Colonial) Absence,” in Chris Berry, ed., Chinese Films in Focus: 25 New Takes. London: British Film Institute, 2003, 104-110.

· “My Writing, Your Pain, and Her Trauma: Pronouns and (Gendered) Subjectivity in Gao Xingjian’s Soul Mountain and One Man’s Bible,” Journal of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 14:2 (December 2002), 99-129.

Encyclopedia Entry:

· “Theatre and Performance,” in Gary Xu and Vinay Dharwardker, ed., Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Popular Culture: vol.6, Asia and Pacific Oceania, 313-320.

Reviews:

· Book Review of China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity, by Sheldon H. Lu. The China Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China 4:1 (Spring 2004). 248-250.

· Book Review of The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China 1917-1937, by Shu-mei Shih. The Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 4:1 (Spring 2003). (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_colonialism_and_colonial_history/v004/4.1xu.html)

· Book Review of Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century, edited by Pang-yuan Chi and David Der-wei Wang. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, volume 24 (December 2002), 209-211.

· Book Review of Chinese Justice, the Fiction: Law and Literature in Modern China, by Jeffrey C. Kinkley. Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese 5:2 (January 2002), 167-171.

· Book Review of The Mouth that Begs: Hunger, Cannibalism, and the Politics of Eating in Modern China, by Gang Yue. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, volume 22 (December 2000), 182-185.

· Film Review of HHH: A Portrait of Hou Hsiao-hsien, directed by Olivier Assayas (1996). The Asian Educational Media Service Newsletter 6:1 (Fall 2002), 4-5.

· Conference Review of the International Symposium “Writing Taiwan: The Fifty Years of Taiwan Literature,” Journal of Modern Chinese Literature 10: 1-2 (1998), 269-274.

Selected Publications in Chinese

· The Cross-Cultural Zizek Reader. Beijing University Press, 2007.

· “Chinese Literature under Neo-liberalism,” in Zhang Hongsheng and Qian Nanxiu, ed., Zhongguo wenxue chuantong yu xiandai de duihua (Dialogs between Tradition and Modern on Chinese Literature). Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2007, 674-683.

· “My Camera Doesn’t Lie: Realism and Chinese Cityscape in Beijing Bicycle,” Hangzhou shifan xueyuan xuebao (The journal of Hangzhou Teacher’s College), vol. 28 (January 2006), 91-95.

· “Remaking East Asian Films and Hollywood’s Global Strategy,” Dianying xinzuo (New cinema studies), vol. 161 (October 2005), 40-42.

· “Qing that Matters: The Materiality of Chinese Romantic Passion,” in Chen Pingyuan, et al, ed., The Late Ming and the Late Qing: Historical Dynamics and Cultural Innovations. Wuhan: Hubei Education Publishing House, 2002, 517-528.

· “Translation, Colonial Difference, and Border Thinking: On Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Film Flowers of Shanghai,” Jintian (Today), vol. 52 (Spring 2001), 254-265.

· “Revived Significance, Silent Shadow, and Performative Gesture: Su Weizhen’s Theatricality,” in Zhou Yingxiong and Liu Jihui, ed., Writing Taiwan: Literary History, Postcolonialism and Postmodernism. Taipei: Rye Field, 2000, 373-390.

· “Jianghu: The Stage for History and Fiction,” Jianghai xuekan (Jianghai Academic Journal), 2000:2 (March 2000), 180-188.

· Conference Review of the International Symposium “Dynastic Decline and Cultural Innovation,” Newsletter of The Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy of Academia Sinica 9: 1 (March 1999), 83-88.

Honors and Grants

2001-present University of Illinois Research Board Conference Travel Grants (various amount)

2007 Faculty Summer Research Grant with Undergraduate Components, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($13,000)

2006 Faculty Fellowship, Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership, University of Illinois ($15,000)

2005 Foreign Language Enhancement Grant, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($1,500)

2005 Faculty Professional Development Grant, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($1,000)

2005 International Council Visitor Grant, University of Illinois ($27,000)

2005 Faculty Research Grant, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($1,500)

2005 Illinois Program for Research in Humanities Reading Group Grant ($500)

2004 Humanities Release Time, Campus Research Board, University of Illinois

2003-2004 East Asian Learning Community Grant on “Trans-East Asian Cinema,” Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($1,000)

2003 Foreign Language Enhancement Grant, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($1,500)

2003 Faculty Research Grant, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($1,000)

2002 Undergraduate Curriculum Development Grant, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois ($4,000)

1997-2001 Columbia University Fellowship

1999 Hsu Sheng-Fat Foundation Award for Outstanding Chinese American Students

1994 The Ohio State University Graduate Associate Teaching Award

1992-1994 The Ohio State University Fellowship

Conference Presentations and Invited Talks

2008 “Chinese Literature as World Literature,” Unit for Criticism Faculty Seminar on Literary Methodology, University of Illinois, February.

“John Woo and the Affectuation of Cinema.” For “The International Conference on Gender and Chinese Cinema,” Nanjing University, June.

2007 “Panda, SARS, Intellectual Property: A Glimpse Into Contemporary Chinese Visual Culture.” Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, February.

“Man’ei, Zhang Henshui, and Gender Regulations in Early Republican China.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Boston, March.

2006 “China’s ‘Beauty Economy’: Westernization, Fetishism, and Global Neoliberalism.” At the “Workshop on Gender, China, and the WTO,” Rice University, Houston, March.

“Initial D as an ‘East Asian’ Film.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, San Francisco, April.

“Devils on the Doorstep and the Violence of Representation,” invited talk at Grinnell College, Iowa, May

“On Neoliberalism, Globalization, and China’s Development,” invited talk at Fudan University, Shanghai, May.

“On Corruption.” For “The International Conference on Rethinking Literature Today: Perspectives from China and the U.S.,” Duke University, October.

2005 “Remaking East Asia and Outsourcing Hollywood.” For “Asia in a Globalizing World: An International Conference,” University of Illinois, April.

“Hollywood Remakes of East Asia Films.” For “National, Transnational, and International: Chinese Cinema and Asian Cinema in the Context of Globalization – Centennial Celebration of Chinese Cinema,” Beijing University, June.

“Literary Studies in the Age of Neoliberalism.” Association of Chinese and Comparative Literature Biennial Conference, Nanjing University, June.

“The Legacy of Humanism.” For “The Hsia Brothers and Chinese Literature: An International Symposium,” Columbia University, October.

2004 “Hollywood Hong Kong: The Irreducible Impediment of Modernity and the Transnational Production of the (Chinese) Body.” For "The Chinese Body Politic: Corporeality and Power in Modern China – A Symposium," Harvard University, April.

“Cross-culturalizing Modernity.” For Unit of Criticism Spring Seminar on Modernity, University of Illinois, April.

“Sinascape as a Dimension of Transnationalism.” For “The End of Theory? Critical Inquiry at the Global Age,” Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, June.

2003 “The ‘Black and White’ History: Violence in Jiang Wen’s Film Devils on the Doorstep.” For “The Symposium on the Question of Violence,” University of California at Berkeley, March.

“Edifying Romance: Zhang Henshui’s Translation of a Modern Visuality.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, New York, March.

“Devils in the Great Wall: The Violence of Representation in Post-Socialist Chinese Cinema.” For “Visual Culture in Modern China,” University of Washington, Seattle, May.

“Shaw Brothers’ Martial Arts Films in Taiwan.” For “Constructing Pan-Chinese Cultures: Globalism and the Shaw Brothers Cinema,” University of Illinois, October.

“Edward Said: The Popular Humanist and Oppositional Critic.” For “The Legacy of Edward Said: Reflections on Cultures and Politics,” University of Illinois, October.

“Memory, Transnational Urbanism, and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Millennium Mambo.” For “Double Vision: Taiwan’s New Cinema, Here and There,” Yale University, October.

2002 “The Pedagogical as the Political: Ideology, Globalization, and Zhang Yimou’s Recent Films.” For “The Symposium on Psychoanalytic Approaches to Ideology in Film,” University of Illinois, April.

“The Everyday Violence: The Cultural Revolution Re-imagined and Reinvented.” For “The Symposium on Violence in/of Chinese History: Records, Memory, and Imagination,” University of Illinois, April.

“Post-politics and Anthologizing the ‘Tri-City’.” For “Mapping a New Cultural Geography: Taipei, Hong Kong, and Shanghai as Global Cities – An International Symposium,” Washington University, St. Louis, May.

2001 “Performing the Uncanny: Emergence of a Sexed Body in the Good-to-be-Man Country.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, March.

“The Sentimental Education of Modern Chinese Fiction: Xu Zhenya’s Yuli hun.” For “Chinese Popular Culture Unveiled: New Reflections on Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies Fiction – An International Symposium,” Columbia University, April.

2000 “Remembering the Butterfly: Ye Zhaoyan’s Passionate Memory and Fictional History.” For “Contested Modernities: Perspectives on Twentieth Century Chinese Literature,” Columbia University, April.

“Technology of Writing: techne and phronesis in Han Bangqing’s Sing-song Girls of Shanghai.” International Conference on Chinese Popular Literature, Suzhou University, Suzhou, China, July.

“The Materiality of Qing/Passions.” International Conference on Dynastic Changes and Cultural Innovations in Late Ming and Late Qing, Beijing University, Beijing, China, August.

“Ethics of Form: Eroticism and Narrative Excess in Guwangyan.” New England Conference of the Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Brown University, September.

“Sing-song Girls of the Globe: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Border Thinking in Flowers of Shanghai.” For “Remapping Taiwan: Histories and Cultures in the Context of Globalization – An International Symposium,” University of California, Los Angeles, October.

1999 “Pseudo-knowledge, Original Matters: A Reading of Zhang Dachun’s Benshi.” For “The Politics of Difference – Taiwan Perspective,” University of Washington, August.

“Passions and Chinese Modernity in the Peach-Blossom Fan.” For “Figures of the Past,” American Comparative Literature Association Special Session at the MLA Convention, Chicago, December.

1998 “In Search of the Shadow: Reading Theatricality in Su Weizhen’s Writing.” For “Writing Taiwan: Strategies of Representation – An International Symposium on Chinese Literature from Taiwan,” Columbia University, May.

“Jianghu: The Stage for History and Fiction.” International Conference on Jin Yong and Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature, University of Colorado, May.

“Guwangyan: An Eighteenth-Century Masterpiece Rediscovered.” For “From the Late Ming to the Late Qing: Dynastic Decline and Cultural Innovation – A Symposium,” Columbia University, November.

Academic Services

· Conference Co-Organizer, “Social Entrepreneurship and Contemporary China,” Nanjing University, June 2007

· Conference Co-organizer, “Fetishizing the Free Market: The Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism,” University of Illinois, April 2005.

· Conference Co-organizer, “Asia in a Globalizing World: An International Conference,” University of Illinois, April 2005.

· Conference Co-organizer, The Eighth Annual Graduate Student Conference on East Asia, Columbia University, February 1999.

· Organizer, Taiwan Film Festival, University of Illinois, October 2005.

· Reviewer, for University of Hawaii Press, 2008.

· Reviewer, for Hong Kong University Grants Committee, 2005, 2006.

· Reviewer, for the Journal of Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 2005.

· Reviewer, for the Journal of Asian and African Studies, 2005.

· Reviewer, for the journal Chinese Literature: Essays, Reviews, Articles.

· Reviewer, for Yale University Press, 2002.

· Organizer and Chair, for the panel “East-Asianism in Chinese Mass Media,” The Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, San Francisco, April 2006.

· Respondent, for Liu Kang, “Maoism as a Third World Globalism,” at the conference “Totalitarianism and Democracy: Political Theory and Popular Culture in an Age of Global Insecurity,” University of Illinois, April 2004.

· Chair and Discussant, for the panel “Global Chinese Network and Transnational Cinema,” American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference, University of Michigan, March 2004.

· Chair and Discussant, for the panel “The Flight of Chinese Cinema,” The Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Illinois State University, October 2003.

· Discussant, for Daniel Hsieh, “Why zhiguai: The Emergence of Records of the Strange in Early Medieval China,” Symposium on Buddhism and Daoism in Chinese Literature, University of Illinois, March 2003.

· University Senator, University of Illinois, 2006-2007

· University Senate Honorary Degrees Committee Member, University of Illinois, 2006-2007

· Advisory Committee Member, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, University of Illinois, 2005-2007

· Advisory Committee Member, Illinois Program for Research in Humanities, 2007-2009

· Search Committees Member, for positions in Japanese Linguistics, Chinese Anthropology, Modern Japanese Literature, and Korean History, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007

· Mellon Post-doc Fellowship Review Committee Member, 2004-2005.

· Fulbright and Marshall Scholarships Review Committee Member, 2004-2005.

Community Services and Other Activities

Organizer, Asian Film Series, Champaign Public Library, April 2008

President, Central Illinois Chinese Heritage Association, 2004-2005.

Committee Member, Chinese Passing Score Review Panel, Illinois State Board of Education

Field Director, Freeman Foundation “Learning about China” Program at Beijing University, Summer 2004; at Fudan University, Summer 2006.

Faculty Instructor, Workshop on Teaching Chinese Literature for High School Teachers, Indiana University, Summer 2007, 2008

Faculty Instructor, Workshop on China for Illinois high school teachers, University of Illinois, Spring 2004.

Interpreter, for Tsai Ming-liang, the director of Goodbye Dragon Inn, at 2003 Chicago International Film Festival.

Translator, for Taiwan Film Center (screenplays and subtitles from Chinese to English)

Graduate Advising

PhD dissertation committee member for:

John Chua, Cinema Studies: “The Horror, The Horror: The Repetition and Compulsion of a Genre” (August 2004)

E. K. Tan, Comparative Literature (Co-Chair): “Lack, Loss and Displacement: Renarrativing ‘Chineseness’ through the Aesthetics of Southeast Asian Literature and Film” (May 2007)

Li-lin Tseng, Art History: “Pictures in Motion: The Cinematic Art of Zheng Zhengqiu and His Shanghai Contemporaries, 1922-1935” (May 2008)

Hui Xiao (Chair)

Tonglu Li (Chair)

Yiju Huang (Chair)

Yanjie Wang (Chair)

Liyu Li (Chair)

Eric Dalle (Co-Chair)

Examiner for M.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures:

Ying Hu (2002), Robert Newcomb (2002), Asuko Sango (2002),

Shuyin Chuai (2003), Chun Sook Choi (2003), Eric Dalle (2003),

Juan Peng (2003), Cooper Wakefield (2003), Laurie Wittlinger (2003),

Hui Xiao (2003), Liyu Li (2004), Yang Wei (2004), Mei Yang (2004),

Martin Sla