Professor of Sinology, University of Frankfurt
Zhiyi Yang
楊治宜
I specialize in the research on classical and modern classicist Chinese poetry, through which I investigate questions about aesthetics, history, intellectual history, cultural memory, as well as media and culture. A graduate of Peking University, I received a PhD in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in 2012. My first monograph is about the 11th century poet Su Shi (Dongpo), and my second book explores the complicated modern poet and politician Wang Zhaoming (Jingwei). My current work focuses on exploring a phenomenon that I term as “Sinophone classicism,” especially lyric classicism in modern and contemporary China. I love books, music, dancing, yoga, hiking, and traveling. I consider myself Chinese, European, and world citizen. It is the call of the distance–what the Germans beautifully describe as das Fernweh–which has brought me across oceans, from China to the US and eventually to Germany.
宜，江西宜春人氏。雅好讀書，不求甚解；性不耐酒，空杯常持。學問之道，非為己而誰歟？百歲之間，耽斯娛以終老。
Curriculum Vitae
Employment
University of Frankfurt
University Professor
Department of Sinology
since 2015
University of Frankfurt
Junior Professor
Department of Sinology
2012 – 2015
Education
Princeton University
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of East Asian Studies
2006 – 2012
Peking University
Master of Arts
Institute of Comparative Literature
2002 – 2005
Peking University
Bachelor of Arts
Department of Chinese Literature
Experimental Class of Liberal Arts
1998 – 2002
Researching and teaching Chinese poetry in foreign contexts compels me to constantly go outside my own linguistic house of being.
One becomes a messenger bird, flying between citadels of established truths, under a grey sky of history where ashes of traditions are falling.
The intercultural poetic Dasein is that of terrifying beauty.
Fellowships and Grants
| Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Bad Homburg | Goethe Fellow | 04/2021 – 03/2025 |
| Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) | Fellow, “Russian-language Poetry in Transition” (Trier University, 2017-2021) |
10/2020 – 02/2021 |
| Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin | Residential Fellow | 09/2019 – 06/2020 |
| Taiwan Ministry of Science and Technology | Guest professor, National Taiwan Normal University | 11/2018 – 01/2019 |
| Fudan University | Residential Fellow at the International Center for Studies of Chinese Civilization | 09-10/2012 |
| Princeton University | Dissertation Writing Grant | Fall 2011 |
| Whiting Foundation | Whiting Fellowship | 2010 – 2011 |
| Princeton University | Full Graduate Fellowship | 2006 – 2011 |
| Peking University | Guanghua Scholarship | 2000, 2001, 2002 |
Awards
| Hanban | Conference funding, International Symposium, “Back into Modernity: Classical Poetry and Intellectual Transition in Modern China” |
07/2014 |
| PIIRS Grant | Summer Funding for Language Studies and Research | 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 |
| Peking University | Guanghua Scholarship | 2000, 2001, 2002 |
| Peking University | Honor for Outstanding Students | 2001 |
| Peking University | Chuying Scholarship | 1998, 1999 |
Academic Services
| Frankfurt Humanities Research Center | Board Member | since 11/2020 |
| Confucius Institute Frankfurt | President of the Board | since 03/2016 |
| Frankfurt East Asia Center (IZO) | Deputy Executive Director | 06/2017 – 07/2019 |
| Frontiers of Literary Studies in China (FLSC) | Editorial Committee Member | 01/2017 – 07/2019 |
Organized Conferences
| 16 September 2019, London | Co-organizer (with Jeremy Taylor), “Cultural and Intellectual Histories of Japanese-occupied China” |
| 4-5 July 2014, Frankfurt | Organizer, “Back into Modernity: Classical Poetry and Intellectual Transition in China, Late 19th through 20th Century,” |
| 28-29 September 2012, Shanghai | Organizer, “Forgotten Renaissances,” ICSCC, Fudan University |
| 23-25 August 2004, Beijing | Academic Secretary of the international panel on Chinese Literature, 1st “Beijing Forum” |
My Publications
