Xiaojing Miao

My research explores a wide range of issues in Chinese culture and literature, especially that of the medieval period, including self-writing, authenticity and sincerity, ghostwriting, and historiography. Some of my works have been published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Tang Studies, and Early Medieval China.

My current book project, titled Who Am I: The Politics of Self-Representation in Tang Literature (618–770), explores how Tang literati presented themselves in relation to the institution of officialdom, that is, in the context of their political careers in the state bureaucracy. While working on the literary presentation of the self, I have also become interested in writing for the other, particularly the practice of daizuo, which literally means writing on behalf of another, or ghostwriting. My next major project will explore this hitherto underexamined socially and culturally significant practice.

Before joining the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures as a lecturer, I was the Stanley Ho Junior Research Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, after graduating with a doctorate from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Office hours: Tuesday 11:30am-12:30pm or by appointment.