I have always been fascinated by languages, as reflected in my teaching and research.

At Beloit, I teach classes in various levels of Modern Standard Chinese. Learning Chinese gives students insights into language’s role in shaping how we think and experience the world. I also offer courses on topics related to Chinese literary and cultural history.

In recent years, my teaching has grown to include courses that introduce students to research in the Digital Humanities (DH). Students in my courses use a variety of quantitative tools and methods to explore texts as data. I’m particularly intrigued by the ways in which we can apply computational tools and methods to the study of literature. I encourage students who want to learn more about DH to pursue advanced DH projects with me.

Additionally, I enjoy mentoring students interested in literary translation, something I pursue in my scholarship. Currently, I am working on a translation of the eighteenth-century Chinese language novel Lüye xianzong (working title: The Worldly Adventures of Master Leng Yubing, Daoist Immortal).

My latest published research can be found in History Retold: Premodern Chinese Texts in Western Translation (Brill, 2022; Leo Tak-hung Chan and Zong-qi Cai, eds). Entitled “The ‘Double Effect’ of Translation in Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat’s Iu-Kiao-Li,” my contribution to this volume describes how a work of narrative fiction from seventeenth-century China came to be translated into French in the early nineteenth century. It also explores what its readers understood themselves to be reading.

In my private life, I am a (very) amateur piano player and an aspiring beekeeper. I also enjoy making jam with the beach plums I gather with my family. I serve on the board of directors of both the Beloit-Janesville Symphony and the Qi Shu Fang Peking Opera Company.