Dr. Xiaojing Miao
I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in May 2019, with Professor Paul W. Kroll as my advisor. Thereafter, I worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese at CU Boulder for two years before joining Pembroke. My primary research focus is medieval Chinese literature and culture (roughly 100 to 900 CE), with secondary focuses on rhetoric, historiography, and humour studies.
My current book project, tentatively titled Mirrors and Masks: Showing Selves in Tang Literature (618-766), explores Tang literati’s self-representation. Literary selves appeared everywhere in Tang literature, even in genres that are not traditionally associated with self-representation. Under many circumstances, practical concerns—such as seeking political patronage, offering self-justification, consolidating friendship, and establishing posthumous reputations—motivated Tang literati to offer their self-portraits and influenced how they wrote about themselves. In my book, I attempt to shed light on such contentious questions as: Does the writing mirror or mask the writer? How to understand it when authors present contradictory self-images in their writings? Why do people talk about themselves in certain specific ways? Are sincerity and authenticity required principles for self-representation or just pretences? With this project—which has won a research grant from the T’ang Studies Society—, I hope to contribute to the study of Tang literature and culture, as well as to join the discussion of self-representation and autobiography with scholars from other literary traditions and disciplines.
Inspired by the phenomenon that Tang literati sometimes used humour as a rhetorical strategy for self-representation, my next project will examine humour in medieval Chinese literature. Building on multidisciplinary research on rhetoric, humour, and social interaction, this project aims to contribute to our current understandings of medieval Chinese elite humour and culture and humour as a universal phenomenon shared by different cultures across time.
I have six years of university teaching experience and have taught courses in Chinese language, literature, and culture, as well as a course on academic writing in Chinese and Japanese literature and civilization. In teaching, as in research, I aim to show Chinese culture not as an isolated entity, but as part of Asian culture and world culture more broadly, as well as to reveal its role in a multicultural world.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals
(under peer-review) “Defying the Times”: Liu Zhiji’s Resignation Letter Reconsidered,” T’ang Studies.
(accepted for publication) “Self-Praise with Wit: Yang Jiong and other Tang Literati,” Journal of the American Oriental Society.
“Self-Display and Farewell Counsel: The Occasional Preface in the Early and High Tang,” T’ang Studies, 37(2019): 1–29.
“Li Bai ‘Gufeng’ qiyi ‘wo zhi zai shan shu’ jie” 李白《古風》其一“我志在刪述”解 (“Interpretation of ‘I Aspire to Edit and Transmit’ in Li Bai’s First ‘Ancient Airs’ Poem”), Wenshi zhishi 2014.10: 46–51.
Book Reviews
Reading Du Fu: Nine Views, ed. Xiaofei Tian (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2020). Journal of the American Oriental Society, 141.2 (2021): 463-66.
Xiaofei Tian, The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018). The Journal of Asian Studies, 79.4 (2020): 998-1000.
Ao Wang, Spatial Imaginaries in Mid-Tang China: Geography, Cartography, and Literature (Amherst, N.Y.: Cambria Press, 2018). Journal of the American Oriental Society, 140.3 (2020): 725–26.
Dr. Xiaojing Miao
I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in May 2019, with Professor Paul W. Kroll as my advisor. Thereafter, I worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese at CU Boulder for two years before joining Pembroke. My primary research focus is medieval Chinese literature and culture (roughly 100 to 900 CE), with secondary focuses on rhetoric, historiography, and humour studies.
My current book project, tentatively titled Mirrors and Masks: Showing Selves in Tang Literature (618-766), explores Tang literati’s self-representation. Literary selves appeared everywhere in Tang literature, even in genres that are not traditionally associated with self-representation. Under many circumstances, practical concerns—such as seeking political patronage, offering self-justification, consolidating friendship, and establishing posthumous reputations—motivated Tang literati to offer their self-portraits and influenced how they wrote about themselves. In my book, I attempt to shed light on such contentious questions as: Does the writing mirror or mask the writer? How to understand it when authors present contradictory self-images in their writings? Why do people talk about themselves in certain specific ways? Are sincerity and authenticity required principles for self-representation or just pretences? With this project—which has won a research grant from the T’ang Studies Society—, I hope to contribute to the study of Tang literature and culture, as well as to join the discussion of self-representation and autobiography with scholars from other literary traditions and disciplines.
Inspired by the phenomenon that Tang literati sometimes used humour as a rhetorical strategy for self-representation, my next project will examine humour in medieval Chinese literature. Building on multidisciplinary research on rhetoric, humour, and social interaction, this project aims to contribute to our current understandings of medieval Chinese elite humour and culture and humour as a universal phenomenon shared by different cultures across time.
I have six years of university teaching experience and have taught courses in Chinese language, literature, and culture, as well as a course on academic writing in Chinese and Japanese literature and civilization. In teaching, as in research, I aim to show Chinese culture not as an isolated entity, but as part of Asian culture and world culture more broadly, as well as to reveal its role in a multicultural world.
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals
(under peer-review) “Defying the Times”: Liu Zhiji’s Resignation Letter Reconsidered,” T’ang Studies.
(accepted for publication) “Self-Praise with Wit: Yang Jiong and other Tang Literati,” Journal of the American Oriental Society.
“Self-Display and Farewell Counsel: The Occasional Preface in the Early and High Tang,” T’ang Studies, 37(2019): 1–29.
“Li Bai ‘Gufeng’ qiyi ‘wo zhi zai shan shu’ jie” 李白《古風》其一“我志在刪述”解 (“Interpretation of ‘I Aspire to Edit and Transmit’ in Li Bai’s First ‘Ancient Airs’ Poem”), Wenshi zhishi 2014.10: 46–51.
Book Reviews
Reading Du Fu: Nine Views, ed. Xiaofei Tian (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2020). Journal of the American Oriental Society, 141.2 (2021): 463-66.
Xiaofei Tian, The Halberd at Red Cliff: Jian’an and the Three Kingdoms (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Asia Center, 2018). The Journal of Asian Studies, 79.4 (2020): 998-1000.
Ao Wang, Spatial Imaginaries in Mid-Tang China: Geography, Cartography, and Literature (Amherst, N.Y.: Cambria Press, 2018). Journal of the American Oriental Society, 140.3 (2020): 725–26.