S.E. Kile

I am an associate professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. My research focuses on the drama, fiction, and prose of the Ming and Qing periods, and I have interests in gender theory, cultural history, and visual culture. My first monograph, Towers in the Void: Li Yu and Early Modern Chinese Media (2023), theorizes early modern mediation and entrepreneurship through Li Yu’s (1611-1680) cultural production across the areas of playwriting, fiction writing, garden and architectural design, theater direction, and body modification. My current book project argues for the relevance of the “early modern” to the study of China, exploring how novelists synthesized scientific, religious, and vernacular knowledge about the world. A scholar of early modern Chinese literature and cultural history, one aspect of my research foregrounds the operations of gender and performance, as in the article, “Transgender Performance in Early Modern China,” differences 24.2 (2013): 130-149 (Chinese version: 邝师华. “Zaoqi jindai Zhongguo de kuaxingbie biaoyan 早期近代中国的跨性别表演” in Zhongguo xing/bie: lishi chayi 中国性／别：历史差异. Shanghai: Sanlian, 2015). I have also addressed contemporary interpretations of premodern same-sex romance in “Sensational Kunqu: The April 2010 Beijing Production of Lianxiang ban (Women in Love),” CHINOPERL Papers (Chinese Oral and Performing Literatures Papers) 30.1 (2011): 215-222. More generally, my work brings together a broad range of cultural texts. Recent work has been published in How to Read Chinese Drama (Columbia University Press, 2022), Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, and Late Imperial China.

Affiliation(s)

• Michigan Society of Fellows

Field(s) of Study

• Early Modern Chinese Literature