Enhua Zhang

Enhua Zhang received her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures with a minor in Anthropology from Columbia University. Her research and teaching interests include Chinese literature since the late nineteenth century, Chinese Cinema, Chinese Popular Culture, Gender Studies, and Cross-cultural Studies.

Dr. Zhang’s first book Space, Politics, and Cultural Representation in Modern China: Cartographies of Revolution has been accepted for publication by Routledge in 2016. It has been commonplace to describe revolution as a drastic change in sociopolitical institutions over a short period of time. This results partly from the privileging of time over space within modern philosophical thought. Revolution, however, operates in both temporal and spatial dimensions. In this book, Dr. Zhang argues for a reconsideration of revolution as a reorganization of space. This monograph examines the relations between revolution, space, and culture in modern China. Specifically, through cultural representations, it analyzes how revolution constructs, conceives, and transforms space. Revolution is usually understood as an event that is historical and historiographical. For example, revolution changes not only the course of history but also the writing and even the rewriting of history. Dr. Zhang approaches revolution from three spatial dimensions: physical, social, and symbolic. In light of these distinctions of space, she chooses five spatially significant revolutionary events as my case studies: the territorial dispute between Russia and the Qing dynasty in 1892, the Land Reform in the 1920s, the Long March (1934-36), the mainland-Taiwan split in 1949, and the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). She uses materials associated with these events, including primarily literature, as well as maps, political treatises, historiography, plays, film, and art. Dr. Zhang argues that in addition to redirecting the flow of Chinese history, revolutionary movements operate in and on space in three main ways: maintaining territorial sovereignty, redefining social relations, and governing an imaginary realm.

During her post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard’s Fairbank Center, with the support from the CCK Foundation Inter-University Center for Sinology, Harvard-Yenching Institute, and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Dr. Zhang co-organized an international conference on Red Legacy in China in April 2010. This conference led to an edited volume Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution, which is under contract and forthcoming at Harvard Asia Center.

Funded by the Healey/Faculty Research Grant of UMass, Dr. Zhang is currently working a project entitled “The Spectral, the Spectacular: China in Impressions—the Outdoor Themed Performances.” It examines the makings and receptions of the Impression series, specifically, how Zhang Yimou, Wang Chaoge and their production team utilize and transform the natural landscape into a performative space, how the traditional folk culture is made to appeal modern gaze, and how these performances fit in the operation of cultural industry in a consumer-orientated society.

• Chinese Literature, late nineteenth century-present
• Chinese Cinema
• Chinese Popular Culture
• Gender Studies
• Cross-Cultural Studies

• Healy/Faculty Research Grant, UMass, 2015-16.
• Interdisciplinary Studies Institute Fellow, UMass, 2014-15.
• An Wang Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University, 2009-2010.
• Association for Asian Studies, China and Inner Asia Council Grant, 2008, 2005.
• Columbia University, Y.F. and L.C.C. Wu Fellowship, 2005, 2006.
• The Wu Foundation Fellowship for Dissertation Research, 2005.

Monograph
Space, Politics, and Cultural Representation in Modern China: Cartographies of Revolution (London and New York: Routledge, 2016).

Edited Volume
Red Legacies in China: Cultural Afterlives of the Communist Revolution.
(co-editor, with Jie Li, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Asia Center, 2016)

Articles
“In Memory of Chih-Tsing Hsia” (Huiyi Xia Zhiqing xiansheng). China Reading Weekly (Zhonghua dushubao), Jan. 15, 2014.

“Chongqing, Greenwood, Utopia: On White Sand Shore” (Chongqing, Lülin, Wutuobang: Baisha matou, in Chinese). Booktown (Shucheng), Vol. 33 (February 2009): 60-65.

“From Communism to Consumerism, From Revolution to Recreation: Red Tourism in China.” (in Japanese). China 21(中國２１), No. 29 (Aichi University Press, 2008): 161-182.
“Under the Double Shackles of Epic and Myth: the Long March in Literary Representations” (in Chinese). Dangdai zuojia pinglun (Contemporary Writers Review), No. 1, 2006: 118-123.

“Where is Curious George?” (in Chinese). Wanxiang (Panorama), Vol.6 (2004), No. 11 and No. 12: 158-169.

“Three Film Reviews of the 33rd New Director’s/New Films Series 2004” (in Chinese). Wanxiang (Panorama), Vol.6 (2004), No. 9:14-21.    

“XX/XY: Women and Men—a Film Review” (in Chinese). Wanxiang (Panorama), Vol. 5 (2003), No. 8: 154-56.

“On the Carnivalesque in Small World” (in Chinese). Journal of Tianjin University (Humanities and Social Science), No. 1, 2000: 32-38.

Book Chapters
“To My Son—the New China’s Citizen: on Fu Lei’s Family Letters.” (Xiegei erzi, xin zhongguo de erzi: Fu Lei jiashu jiedu). Canonicity and Modernity (Wenxue, jingdian, xiandai yishi). Eds. Ko Chia cian and Cheng Yu-yu. Taipei: Linking Books, 2014: 142-152.

“In Search of Homeland: Xiao Hong” (Xunzhao jiaguo zhilu: Xiao Hong). A History and Study of Modern Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo de shi yu xue). Ed. David Der-wei Wang. Taipei, Linking Books, 2010: 269-284.

“The Long March.” Revolutionary Discourse in China: Words and their Stories. Edited by Ban Wang. Leiden: Brill, 2010: 33-49.  

“The Gengzi Events in Two Tunes: From Ballad of the Gengzi Events to Sandalwood Punishment” (“Gengzi shibian er chongzou: cong Gengzi guobian tanci dao Tanxiang xing”, in Chinese). Chinese Literature: Conversations between Tradition and Modernity (Zhongguo wenxue: chuantong yu xiandai de duihua). Eds. Zhang Hongsheng and Qian Nanxiu. Shanghai: Shanghai Guji chubanshe, 2007: 694-710.

Book Review
Cinema, Space, and Polylocality in a Globalizing China. Yingjin Zhang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2010. The China Quarterly. Vol. 208 (December 2011): 1056-57.

Encyclopedia
“The Long March.” Encyclopedia of Modern China. Vol. 4. Eds. David Pong et. al. Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2009: 526-528.

Short Documentary
With anthropological training, Dr. Zhang values and always finds inspiration in fieldwork.  In order to gain first hand materials and lived experience about Red Tourism, she visited one of the primary Red Tourism sites, Mao Zedong’s hometown Shaoshan with Jie Li in June 2009. The fieldwork at Shanshao reveals more of the capitalist operation and corruption in the practice of Red Tourism. Dr. Zhang organized a roundtable discussion on the Communist legacy in China at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in 2010.  The short documentary “Shaoshan Pilgrim” they filmed on this trip was screened at the roundtable session. It is available at http://vimeo.com/12590650 (password: shaoshan).

• Chinese 136: Introduction to Chinese Cinema
• Chinese 241: Modern Chinese Literature
• Chinese 394PI: Chinese Popular Culture
• Chinese 597L: Modern Chinese Literature and Culture