Faculty
Alexei K. Ditter 迪磊 (Chair)
Professor of Chinese and Humanities
B.A. 1995, University of Minnesota. M.A. 2001, PhD 2009 Princeton University. Reed College 2006–
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Teaching: Alexei teaches courses on medieval (3rd–10th c.) and late imperial (14th–19th c.) Chinese literature, as well as modern and classical Chinese language. He has offered seminars on the representation of the Other in narrative, explorations of love and romance, and a semester-long engagement with Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng 紅樓夢). He contributes to Reed’s Chinese Humanities program (Hum 231/232) and advises senior theses on topics ranging from the early medieval humor anthology Tales to Crack a Smile to late imperial fiction (The Plum in the Golden Vase, The Scholars, Twelve Towers) and modern works by Mo Yan and Yan Ge.
Research: Alexei's research examines 8th–10th c. Chinese literature, with expertise in Tang epigraphy and commemorative writing. He co-edited Tales from Tang Dynasty China (Hackett, 2017), and his work appears in T’oung Pao, Tang Studies, A/B (forthcoming), and edited volumes on memory, genre, and authorship in medieval China. His research has been supported by fellowships from Fulbright, the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, Morphomata, and the National Humanities Center, and he has presented it in invited talks at Academia Sinica, IAS (Princeton), Harvard, and Cambridge. Current projects include two monographs and the co-edited volumes The Study of Medieval Chinese Entombed Epitaphs (Brill) and Laughter, Humor, and Comedy in Middle Period China (Amsterdam UP). Since 2015, with the generous support of the Tang Research Foundation, he has he has co-organized the New Frontiers in the Study of Medieval China workshop series, which to date has convened five national workshops and two international symposiums.
Jing Jiang 姜靖
Professor of Chinese and Humanities
B.A. 1992, Nanjing University. M.A. 1995, Peking University. PhD 2006, University of Michigan. Reed College 2006–
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Teaching: Since coming to Reed in 2006, Jing has taught a wide range of courses in Chinese language, literature, and culture. Aside from participating regularly in the team-taught Chinese Humanities, she also offers courses on Chinese fiction (modern and premodern), Postsocialist Chinese Cinema, Sinophone Film & Media (cotaught with Chinese Art Historian Michelle Wang), and more recently, Comparative Literature.
Research: A comparatist by training, Jing has an abiding interest in all forms of modern and contemporary cultural productions from China that defy and cross linguistic and national borders. Her publications to date, including her short book, Found in Translation: "New People" in Twentieth-Century Chinese Science Fiction (Association for Asian Studies, 2021), all grew out of this research interest. Her current monograph project, tentatively titled “The World Embedded in Modern Chinese Literary Imagination,” explores how a global array of world literary works helped shape modern Chinese literary creations. This project also received an inaugural ACLS fellowship in Chinese and Comparative Literature.
Hyong G. Rhew 柳亨奎
Professor of Chinese
B.A. 1978, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. M.A. 1983, Fu-jen Catholic University. M.A. 1987, PhD 1993, Princeton University. Reed College 1988–
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Teaching: Hyong teaches courses in modern Chinese language and Classical Chinese literature, literary theory, and intellectual history, and regularly gives lectures and runs conferences in the team-taught Chinese Humanities (Hum 231/232). He embraces the conference style of teaching, which allows him to practice a method that, “rather than feeding knowledge, tries to observe and assist students to produce it by themselves.”
Research: Hyong studies classical Chinese literature, which requires a vigorous investigation of how literature, history, and philosophy work together. His interest in early classical Chinese intellectual history led him to study such texts as the Yijing 易經; he is currently at work on a new translation that will reflect the complex history and structure of this text by presenting, in ebook format, multiple readings of earlier layers as guided by interpretive perspectives of internal commentary layers. His work on poetry focuses on exploring ways to find traces of music that did not survive in an effort to show how “musicking” as such can enrich our reading of poems.
Language Scholar
In addition to the above faculty, another important member of the Chinese department is the language scholar, who lives with students in the Chinese House, leads weekly "conversation classes" in the first- and second-year language classes, and helps plan and organize campus-wide celebrations of Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival. The language scholar is also available to meet with students for additional conversation and help with coursework as needed.
Xue Deng 邓雪/鄧雪
Xue Deng received her B.A. in Tourism Management from Haerbin University of Commerce and her M.A. in English Interpreting from Fujian Normal University.
Xue has long loved learning languages, a passion initially sparked by her fascination with Taylor Swift's songs while in middle school. Believing strongly that communication and interaction are crucial to language learning and improvement, she's looking forward to immersing herself in different cultures while at Reed and sharing her own with others in return. She herself speaks Mandarin as well as two Chinese dialects (Sichuan 四川 and Qiang 羌), and is currently working to improve her French.
In her free time, Xue enjoys visiting new places, capturing moments through photography, slowly savoring good cups of coffee, and singing with others. She hopes her work at the Chinese Language House will help those interested in Chinese culture to better understand its richness and beauty through engaging and creative activities.