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Yuefan (Ivy) Wang

Profile picture for Yuefan (Ivy) Wang

Contact Information

East Asian Languages and Cultures
2052 Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics Building
707 S. Mathews Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801, U.S.A.
Full-time Lecturer of Premodern Chinese Literature
Ph.D.

Research Interests

Premodern Chinese literature

Ming and Qing poetry

Chinese intellectual history

Trans-regional garden culture

Translation studies

Women and gender studies

Sino-Japanese literature relations

Research Description

My interdisciplinary dissertation, “Written Gardens Revisited: Gender and Women’s Garden Poetry in Late Imperial China,” unites two stands of significant phenomenon in late imperial China: the newfound popularity of garden literature, and an unprecedented prominent tension between the male-dominated tradition of garden writing and the feminized nature of the garden space. Combining the methodologies of archival research and textual analysis from the fields of literature, women and gender studies, history, art history, and landscape architecture, this study explores how garden poetry enabled gentry women from the 17th to early 20th centuries to produce poetic spaces for multiple purposes and eventually carve a place for women’s voice in the subgenre of Chinese literature. It reveals that garden poems present multifaceted aspects of late imperial women’s changing lives and shed light on their experiences, roles, and aspirations. Many poems discussed in this study are translated into English and analyzed for the first time. Moreover, studying Chinese garden literature, through a gender lens, not only promotes the repositioning of women in world literature but also helps reveal the fullness of designed landscapes in cultural expression. This study has been awarded the 2023 School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics Dissertation Completion Fellowship.

 

Education

PhD, Premodern Chinese Literature, UIUC (Secondary fields: Gender and Women in China, Landscape Architecture)

MA, Comparative Literature and World Literature, Fudan University (recommended for admission without exams; Shanghai Distinguished Graduate)  

BA, Chinese Literature, Tongji University (recommended for admission by Principal; Shanghai Distinguished Graduate)                          

 

 

 

Grants

SLCL Dissertation Completion Fellowship (2023)

Geiss Hsu Annual Conference Travel Grant (AAS Annual Conference) (2023)

Faculty Travel Grant, Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies, UIUC (2023)

Supplemental Summer Block Grant, SLCL, UIUC (2020)

Graduate College Travel Grants (2019 & 2020 & 2021)

EALC Graduate Student Travel Grant (2019 & 2023)

EALC Graduate Summer Research Fellowships (2019 & 2020 & 2021 & 2023)

Research Assistantships, UIUC (2018-2023)

Teaching Assistantships, UIUC (2018-2021)

National Scholarship, China (2017)

National Endeavor Fellowship, China (2014)

 

Awards and Honors

Ronald P. Toby Award (best graduate research paper at EALC) (2022)

UIUC Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students (2019 & 2020 & 2023)

Shanghai Distinguished Graduate (BA; MA) 

Fudan University Excellent Student of the Year (2016)

Tongji University Excellent Student of the Year (2014)

 

Courses Taught

Lead instructor of Content courses:

   EALC 207/CWL 217-Classical Chinese Lit;

   EALC 398/550-The Gendered Garden in Premodern Chinese Lit;

   EALC 425/TRST 430-Chinese Poetry and Translation

Lead instructor of Literary Chinese:

   CHIN 407-Intro to Classical Chinese

   CHIN408-Readings in Literary Chinese

Lead instructor of Mandarin Chinese:

   CHIN 203/204-Intermediate Chinese I/II

   CHIN 440-Fourth-Year Chinese I

Teaching Assistant of content course:

   EALC/CWL 275-Masterpieces of East Asian Literature

 

Additional Campus Affiliations

Chinese Language Support Specialist, Program in Translation and Interpreting Studies, UIUC

Highlighted Publications

Articles and Book Chapter

“Ancient Literature as Subtexts: The Chinese Literary Geography and Dung Kai-Cheung’s V-City Tetralogy.” Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature (Fall 2024). (ESCI)

“Garden, Gender, and Memory: Shang Jinglan and Her Writings in the Ming-Qing Transition.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 10, no. 1 (2023). (AHCI)

“Unquiet Qing: The Course of Lovesickness in the Modernization of Chinese Literature.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 10, no. 2 (2023). (co-author with Professor Liu Ziyun) (AHCI)

“Travelling the Land.” (in Chinese) In Beyond Elegance: Aesthetic Philosophy in Chinese Classical Poetry. Chongqing: Chongqing chubanshe, (Book chapter, co-author with Professor Wan Yan, forthcoming).

“The Field of Hermeneutic Circle.” (in Chinese) Wind of Thoughts from Guangdong, no. 2 (2021).

Book Reviews

Review of The Cornucopian Stage: Performing Commerce in Early Modern China by Ariel Fox. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2023. (Forthcoming)

“The Poetic Spirit Bathing in fire and Finding Freedom.” (in Chinese) Wenhui Weekly Book Reviews, 2018-6-19.

English-Chinese Translated Articles

“Zhu Ziqing and Situational Poetics: Sounding Out an Alternative.” By John A Crespi. Literature, no.1 (2019).

“Ideas in Lyric Communication.” By Mark Payne. Classics and Interpretation, no.1 (2024). (CSSCI)