Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Chinese
Education
Ph. D., Stanford University
M.A., University of Colorado, Boulder
Research/ Teaching Interests
- Pre-modern Chinese literature
- Literati culture
- Anecdotes and storytelling
- Religion and literature
Personal Statement
I am interested in playful poems, jokes, and anecdotal entries preserved in the miscellany writing (biji) in pre-modern China. In my current book project, titled “Tales of Wit and Enlightenment: Laughter and Humor in Northern Song (960-1127) China,” I explore how humorous writing reflected and shaped new literary and religious cultures in 11th century China.
Selected Professional Achievements
- Xiao Rao. “Jin Shengtan’s Preface to the Twenty-eighth Chapter of Shuihu zhuan.” Renditions, no. 80 (2013): 35-39. (https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/rct/toc/toc_b80.html).
- Zhu Gang, Zhao Huijun, and Rao Xiao [translator]. “The Past Lives of Su Shi: Stories of Truth and Adaptation.” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, vol. 4, no. 2 (2017): 248-278. (pdf: https://doi.org/10.1215/23290048-4179494).
- [Book review] Christopher Rea. The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2015), China Review International, vol. 23, no. 4 (2018), 400-5. (pdf: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711236).
- [Book review] The Drunken Man’s Talk: Tales from Medieval China, compiled by Luo Ye, translated by Alister D. Inglis. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015), Journal of American Oriental Society, vol. 138, no. 3 (2018), 683-4. (pdf: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.138.3.0683a).
