WANG Erxin 王尔馨

Research Interests

• Late imperial Chinese literature 明清文学
• Premodern Chinese theater 中国古代戏曲
• Literati culture and intellectual history 士人文化思想史
• Late imperial religious studies 明清宗教研究
• Print culture and book history 出版印刷史
• Media studies 媒介研究

Short Biography

Erxin Wang specializes in the literature, theater, and literati culture of late imperial China. She completed her Ph. D. in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at The Ohio State University in August 2024. She received her master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently working on her first book project, which investigates the theatrical turn during the Wanli era through the lens of how theater innovated established literary practices through its rhetorical, performative, and perceptual aspects, thereby initiating new forms of expression. It focuses on the reference to and celebration of various aspects of theatricality in traditional literary genres, such as poetry, diary, preface, miscellaneous notes, and epistolary writings. Her research also examines the religions and media culture in late imperial China.

Erxin contributed “Thematic Contents,” “Chronology of Historical Events,” and “Glossary-Index” to How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2021), edited by Patricia Sieber and Regina S. Llamas. Additionally, she developed the online module “The Story of the Western Wing (1965)” for The Chinese Theater Collaborative, a digital resource site that introduces traditional Chinese drama and its modern afterlives to international audience. She has also translated two academic articles on Yuan-Ming sanqu songs that have been published in separate issues of Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture.

简介

王尔馨的研究主要关注明清文学、中国古代戏曲与士人文化研究。在圣路易斯华盛顿大学获得硕士学位后，她于2024年8月在俄亥俄州立大学东亚语言文学系获得博士学位。她目前正在撰写第一本英文学术专著。该研究聚焦于万历时期的“戏曲转向”，探讨戏曲作为一种新兴的文化范式，其在修辞、表演与感官体验等方面的特性如何对文人的传统文学实践产生影响，从而启发他们创造新的文学表达形式。她的研究重点是戏剧性（theatricality）在不同传统文学体裁中的创新性表达。这些体裁包括但不限于诗歌、日记、序言、杂记及书信等。此外，她的研究还涉及了晚明时期的宗教与媒介文化。

王尔馨参与了How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology 一书的编写工作，负责撰写“主题内容目录”、“戏曲史事件年表”及“专业术语索引”等部分。此外，她还为“华语戏聚”（Chinese Theater Collaborative）数字资源平台撰写了关于1965年邵氏电影《西厢记》的介绍与分析，旨在向国际读者介绍传统中国戏剧及其现代多媒体改编。她也是两篇关于元明散曲的学术文章的英文译者，这两篇文章都发表在Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture期刊上。