Katherine L. Alexander
University of Colorado, Boulder, Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations
Education
| 06.2016 | Ph.D. University of Chicago, Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations Dissertation title: “Virtues of the Vernacular: Moral Reconstruction in Late Qing Jiangnan and the Revitalization of Baojuan” |
| 12.2009 | M.A. University of Chicago, Department of East Asian Languages & Civilizations |
| 05.2007 | B.A. Beloit College summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. East Asian Languages and Cultures, with departmental honors Physics, with departmental honors Exchange program: Lingnan University (Hong Kong), Exchange program – Fall 2005 |
Research and Teaching Interests
Early Modern China: relationships between Chinese popular literatures and popular religions; popular novels, short stories, dramas, and their oral antecedents; publication history and print cultures; status and uses of Chinese vernaculars; Taiping War Civil and postwar reconstruction, particularly in relation to didactic literature, popular religions, and elite attitudes towards social change and reform; Chinese women’s history; Taiwan history and popular religions
Conference Activities
Panels Organized
| 11.2022 | “Building and Sharing Open-Access Online Resources for the Study of Chinese Religions” co-organized with Dr. Gregory Scott, University of Manchester American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, CO |
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03.2020 | “Legacies of Civil War: Religion and Politics in the Late Qing” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Boston, MA (Conference cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic) |
| 11.2019 | “Disaster and Calamity in Chinese Religions from the Medieval to the Modern Era” co-organized with Dr. Gregory Scott, University of Manchester American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, San Diego, CA |
| 11.2018 | “Inspired by the Other: Rhetorical Reinventions of Tradition in Ming-Qing Religious Literature” American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Denver, CO |
| 03.2015 | “Sowing Seeds of Goodness: Morality Literature in Qing China” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Chicago, IL |
Papers Presented (forthcoming included)
| 11.2022 | Panelist on roundtable “Building and Sharing Open-Access Online Resources for the Study of Chinese Religions” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, CO |
| 03.2022 | “Competing Demands: Challenging and Resolving Identity in Xiunü baojuan” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Honolulu, HI |
| 10.2021 | “Who’s Afraid of Vernacular Literature?: Evangelical Confucianism and its Bureaucracy of Hope” Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association Annual Convention, Boulder, CO |
| 03.2021 | “The Chaste Concubine: Women’s Conflict and Cooperation in Xiunü baojuan” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference Online |
| 12.2020 | “Aesthetic Pleasures of Karmic Revenge and Religious Romance: The Precious Scroll of Liu Xiang as Popular Narrative” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting Online |
| 03.2020 | “Literary Legacies: Reproducing and Re-imagining Yu Zhi’s Corpus” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Boston, MA (conference cancelled due to Covid-19 pandemic) |
| 11.2019 | “Disaster and Calamity in Chinese Religions – The Early Modern Era” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA |
| 10.2019 | “Revising Redemption: Laboring Women and the Work of Moral Performance Literature” Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association Annual Convention, El Paso, TX |
| 11.2018 | “A Confucian Great Commission: Yu Zhi’s Call to Evangelize the Chinese Masses” American Academy of Religion Annual Conference, Denver, CO |
| 10.2018 | “Confucianize Popular Culture, Popularize Confucian Culture: A Late Qing Response to Christian Evangelism” American Oriental Society, Western Branch Annual Meeting, Palo Alto, CA |
| 10.2018 | “Stories in Motion: A Newly-Discovered, Revised Version of Liu Xiang baojuan” Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Cheyenne, WY |
| 03.2018 | “Good Housekeeping: Advice for Women in a late Qing Daily-Use Religious Encyclopedia” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Washington, D. C. |
| 11.2017 | “Late Qing Performances of Philanthropic Identity in Reprints of Pan Gong baojuan” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Boston, MA |
| 10.2017 | “Literary Afterlives of Chastity Paragons in Qing dynasty Taiwan” American Oriental Society, Western Branch Annual Meeting, Tempe, AZ |
| 03.2017 | “Mothers, Maidens, and Ghosts: Afterlives of Qing Chastity Paragons on the Taiwan Frontier” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada |
| 06.2016 | “Tactical deployment of vernacular literature in wartime Jiangnan (1853-1864)” AAS-in-Asia, Kyoto, Japan |
| 04.2016 | “Embodying Guanyin, Embodying yaojing: Devotional Deviance in Liu Xiang baojuan” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Seattle, WA |
| 03.2015 | “Penitent Mothers and Vengeful Fetuses: The Price of Infanticide” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Chicago, IL |
| 01.2013 | “Liu Xiangnü baojuan and Lay Religious Practice” Society for Indian Philosophy and Religion: International & Interdisciplinary Conference, Fo Guang University, Taiwan |
| 02.2010 | “The Elusive Reflection: Reality and Illusion in Mirrors of the Honglou Meng” Graduate Student Conference on East Asia, Columbia University |
| 02.2009 | “Third Rate Iron? A new look at Li Rihua’s Nanxixiang ji” Graduate Student Conference on East Asia, Columbia University |
Workshop Presentations
| 12.2021 | “Sensational Adventures and Religious Awakenings: Xiunü baojuan and its late Qing context” Jiangnan Buddhist Traditions in Context, University of Arizona |
| 06.2021 | “Fearing and Loving the Vernacular: late Qing Social Reform and the Power of Words” International Workshop: “Dynamics of knowledge transmission and linguistic transformation in Chinese textual cultures” Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Verona (Italy) and the Research Center on East Asian Civilizations, CRCAO, Paris (France) |
| 12.2019 | “Making Good: Labor and Laborers in Post-Taiping Moral Reconstruction” The Makers Space: Person, Place, and Production in Early Modern China, Johns Hopkins University |
| 02.2019 | “The Precious Scroll of Cherishing Grains: Redemptive Labor as Women’s Work” New Directions in the Study of Early Modern Chinese Fiction Symposium, University of Puget Sound |
| 10.2017 | “Heaven is Always Watching: Women’s Redemptive Labor in late Qing Morality Literature” East Asian Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies Faculty, University of Montana |
| 03.2015 | “Preserving Grains, Written Paper, and Infants in the Shadow of the Taiping War” East Asian Transregional Histories Workshop, University of Chicago |
| 12.2014 | “Reading for Women: Chinese Popular Religious Culture and Literature in the Late Qing” Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop, University of Chicago |
| 06.2011 | “The Rat and the Bodhisattva: Performance and Religion in Late Qing Baojuan (Precious Scrolls)” Literature, Theater and Cultural History of China Workshop, University of Chicago |
| 11.2009 | “Six Illusions of Encountering an Immortal: Late Ming Xixiang Print Culture and the Allure of Expertise” Literature, Theater and Cultural History of China Workshop, University of Chicago |
Other Presentations
| 03.2021 | “Vernacularizing the Written Word: Printed Performance Literature in Early Modern China” Humanities Research Seminar, University of Manchester |
| 02.2021 | “‘What Times Are These?’: Confronting Crisis with Literature During the Taiping War” Keynote speaker, Arizona State University Graduate Student Symposium: “An Inauspicious Year: Confronting Crisis in Chinese Literature, History, and Culture” |
| 10.2020 | “The Precious Scroll of Liu Xiang: A Case Study in Tradition and Creativity in Qing Popular Religious Literature” Online Speaker Series, East Asia Center, University of California, Santa Barbara |
| 10.2019 | “Archival and Private Collection in Modern China: The Case of Zashuguan” Invited panelist, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University |
| 03.2019 | Review of Yuhang Li, Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China Inaugural First Book Roundtable, Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, AAS 2019 |
| 10.2018 | “Imperial Values and Private Virtues: Popular Morality Literature in the late Qing” Faculty Research Forum, Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, CU Boulder |
| 06.2018 | High School Commencement Speaker, Kaohsiung American School |
| 10.2017 | “Afterlives of Chinese Widows: Venerating Chaste Women on the Taiwan Frontier” Invited Speaker, Mansfield East Asia Lecture Series, University of Montana |
| 10.2017 | “Memorials of Story and Stone: Afterlives of Qing Chastity Paragons on the Taiwan Frontier” Faculty Research Forum, Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, CU Boulder |
| 02.2016 | “Moralizing the Immoral: Conservative Confucian Values and Vernacular Literature” Asian Studies Faculty Seminar, Beloit College |
| 08.2013 | “以《劉香寶卷》研究清末宗教與文化 The Precious Volume of Liu Xiang and late Qing religion and culture” (presented in Mandarin Chinese) Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan |
| 05.2013 | “The Business of Being Good: Baojuan in late Qing Jiangnan” Fulbright Thought Leader Lecture Series, Fulbright Taiwan |
| 04.2006 | “Translation’s Illicit Pleasures: The Plum in the Golden Vase” Student Symposium Presentation, Beloit College |
Awards and Honors
| 04.2021 | Undergraduate Research Opportunities Team Grant, University of Colorado, Boulder |
| 03.2021 | CLAC Course Development Grant, Center for Asian Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder |
| 04.2020 | Undergraduate Research Opportunities Team Grant, University of Colorado, Boulder |
| 02.2019 | Bibliographical Society of America Community Grant |
| 04.2018 | Undergraduate Research Opportunities Team Grant, University of Colorado, Boulder |
| 12.2017 | CHA Faculty Fellowship, Center for Humanities and the Arts, University of Colorado, Boulder |
| 06.2014 | Whiting Dissertation-Year Fellowship, Humanities Division, University of Chicago |
| 06.2014 | Martin Marty Junior Fellowship, Martin Marty Center, Divinity School, University of Chicago |
| 05.2013 | Chinese Studies Dissertation Fellowship, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago |
| 06.2012 | Pre-dissertation Research Grant, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago |
| 04.2012 | Fulbright Student Fellowship, United States Department of State |
| 11.2011 | Taiwan Fellowship, Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (declined) |
| 05.2007 | Lucius Porter Prize for Asian Studies, Beloit College |
| 05.2006 | Phi Beta Kappa, Beta of Wisconsin, Beloit College |
Publications
Articles
“Conservative Confucian Values and the Promotion of Oral Performance Literature in late Qing Jiangnan: Yu Zhi’s Influence on Two Appropriations of Liu Xiang baojuan” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 36.2 (December 2017):89-115.
“The Precious Scroll of Liu Xiang: late Ming Roots and late Qing Proliferation,” Journal of Chinese Religions. 49.1 (May 2021): 49-74. muse.jhu.edu/article/791147
“An Excerpt from The Precious Scroll of Liu Xiang,” Journal of Chinese Buddhist Studies. 34 (July 2021):27-62.
Works in Progress
Book manuscript:
Teaching and Transformation: Yu Zhi and Popular Confucian Literature in the Late Qing
Articles and essays:
“The Penitent Mothers of 19th century Anti-female-infanticide Literature”
Late Imperial China
Status: submitted with initial review, revise and resubmit in progress
“Mothers, Maidens, and Ghosts: Afterlives of Qing Chastity Paragons on the Taiwan Frontier”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
Status: revise and resubmit in progress
“Horror as Cultural Encounter: Red Candle Games’ Devotion” (co-authored with Dr. Gregory Scott, University of Manchester)
Book Reviews
Practicing Scripture: A Lay Buddhist Movement in Late Imperial China. by Barend J. ter Haar. in Journal of Asian Studies 76.3 (August 2017):771-773.
The Immortal Maiden Equal to Heaven and Other Precious Scrolls from Western Gansu by Wilt Idema in Journal of Chinese Religions 45.2 (October 2017):212-214.
Many Faces of Mulian: The Precious Scrolls of Late Imperial China by Rostislav Berezkin in CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 38:2 (December 2019):171-176.
Jesuits and Matriarchs: Domestic Worship in Early Modern China by Nadine Amsler, Journal of the American Oriental Society. 140.4 (October – December 2020): 976-979.
Online publications
“Should the Vatican Compromise with China? A ChinaFile Conversation” ChinaFile, September 25, 2018.
“Beyond Boundaries: What makes us Taiwanese?” TaiwaneseAmerican.org, April 29, 2014
Teaching
University of Colorado, Boulder (Boulder, CO), 08.2016 – present
Undergraduate courses
Introduction to Chinese Civilization (Fall 2016, Spring 2018, Spring 2020, Fall 2020, Spring 2022, Fall 2022)
Women and the Supernatural in Traditional Chinese Literature (Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2019)
Culture and Literature of Late Imperial China (Spring 2021)
Masterpieces of Chinese Literature in Translation (Fall 2021)
Advanced Writing Topics on Chinese & Japanese Literature and Civilization (Spring 2017)
Graduate seminars
Early Modern Chinese Fiction (Fall 2016, Fall 2020, Fall 2022)
History of Chinese Literature 1000-1900 (Fall 2017, Spring 2020)
Topics in Early Modern Literature: Ming-Qing Contexts (Fall 2019, Spring 2022)
Ming-Qing Drama on the Page (Spring 2021)
Graduate Academic Writing (Spring 2018, 2020, 2021, 2021)
University of Chicago (Chicago, IL), 09.2009 – 03.2016
Instructor
Divinity and Femininity: Women’s Religious Lives in Pre-modern China (Winter 2016)
Humanities Core: Readings in World Literature (Fall 2015)
Writing Intern
Humanities Core: Readings in World Literature (Fall 2015)
Humanities Core: Reading Cultures (Fall 2010, Winter 2011, Winter 2012)
Course Assistant
The Ghost Tradition in Chinese Literature, Opera and Film (Fall 2011)
Dream of the Red Chamber and the Culture of Late Imperial China (Fall 2009)
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL), 08-12.2011; 08-12.2015
Instructor
Falling in Love All Over Again: 1200 Years of Reinventing a Chinese Tale (Fall 2015)
Chinese I (Fall 2011)
Beloit College (Beloit, WI), 08.2006 – 05.2007
Course Assistant
Chinese 100, Chinese 200 (Fall 2006, Spring 2007)
Professional Development
| 05.2021 | CU Boulder Human Resources Anti-Racism Challenge |
| 01.2019 | CU Boulder Student Academic Success Center Annual Inclusive Pedagogy Seminar: “Be the Change: Practicing Inclusive Excellence in the Classroom.” |
| 05.2017 | CU Boulder Leadership Education for Advancement and Promotion: “Introductory Leadership Workshop” |
| 02-03.2017 | CU Boulder Arts & Sciences Support of Education Through Technology Special Interest Group: “Encouraging and Developing Students’ Critical Thinking Skills” |
| Winter 2014 | East Asian Languages, Acquisition and Pedagogy – audit Instructor: Hi-Sun Kim |
| Summer 2009 | Pedagogies of Writing – intensive 8 week training, prerequisite to assuming writing instructor position University of Chicago Writing Program |
Service to the Field
2020- Board of Directors, Society for the Study of Chinese Religions
2019–2021 Nominating Committee, American Oriental Society
2018– Steering Committee, Chinese Religions Unit, American Academy of Religion
2018– Steering Committee, Chinese Religious Text Authority (CRTA) Project
2018– Co-chair, “Chinese Literature before 1900” Session, Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association
Languages/Skills
Mandarin Chinese – near-native oral fluency, advanced reading knowledge
Classical Chinese – advanced reading knowledge
Taiwanese – intermediate oral fluency
Japanese – functional reading knowledge, beginner oral proficiency
Far From Formosa 