Li Jianing 李佳凝

Education:
B.A.,National University of Singapore

Research Interest:
Modern and Contemporary Northeastern Chinese Literature and Culture, Ethnic Minority Studies, Ageing Studies

Self-Introduction:
Born and raised up in a Chinese border town adjacent with Russia and Mongolia, I have long been fascinated by Northeastern Chinese ethnic minorities and multicultural borderland narration. Ten years of study overseas have not only deepened my nostalgia for this region but also provided me with renewed perspectives from which to critically examine both my home region and my ancestral trajectory of northward migration. I am interested in Northeastern China studies across multidiscipline. In addition, one of my long-term scholarly ambitions is to write a book on the Chinese elderly to appreciate the accompany and care of my maternal grandparents.

Thesis Advisor: Dr Tu Hang

Thesis Title:Taming the Great Northern Wilderness: Exilic Topophilia and Revolutionary Cultivation (tentative)

Thesis Research Area:
This article situates affective analysis within the historical context of the PRC’s Anti-Rightist Campaigns of the 1960s to examine exiled intellectuals’ topophilic attachment to the Great Northern Wilderness. Through environmental and affective narratives, I contend that revolutionary affect fuses with nature intensely that exile and wilderness are reconfigured into terrains of fervent cultivation, where flora and fauna not only mediate but also symbolize the protagonist’s destiny and her impassioned struggle to tame the nature.