Maghiel van Crevel is a professor of Chinese language and literature at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies.

More information about Maghiel van Crevel

CV & full list of publications (pdf)

Fields of interest

My fields of interest include (Chinese) literature & culture and translation in the broadest sense. My research specialization lies in contemporary Chinese poetry. There was poetry before there was Chinese: this proposition is defensible as a general claim, and it definitely holds for my personal development as a scholar. I like to think of my research as three-dimensional: text (poems), context (socio-political surroundings) and metatext (discourse on poetry). Building on textual analysis as well as regular fieldwork in China undertaken since 1991, my work also draws on the history, sociology and anthropology of literature and on translation studies. At Leiden University Libraries, I have built a print and digital collection of unofficial (minjian) poetry from China. Beyond the China field, my interests include critical area studies and ethics & integrity in academic work.

Supervision

I supervise MA projects in modern Chinese literature and in modern Chinese cultural production at large, and PhD projects in modern Chinese literature. For both MA and PhD students, I welcome projects that focus on cultural production's interfaces with history, politics, society and so on, and projects that address issues of (interlingual & cultural) translation.

CV

Education

• PhD in Chinese Language and Literature, Leiden University (1996)
• MA in Chinese Studies, Leiden University (1987)
• China-Netherlands MoE exchange student, Peking University (1986-1987)
• Fulbright NACEE exchange student, Augsburg College (1981-1982)

Employment

• Full Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Leiden University (since 1999)
• Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Sydney (1996-1999)
• Mandarin instructor, Leiden University (1995-1996)
• Mandarin instructor, Leiden University (1990-1991)
• Research assistant, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen (1988-1989)

Key publications

With the exception of online resources for research and education and the long essay inspired by my fieldwork (2017), the items listed below are all books. My journal publications include articles, book chapters, and translations in English, Chinese, and Dutch, in scholarly journals and books, literary journals, and general media (e.g. positions: asia critique, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Prism: Theory and Modern Chinese Literature, The Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese, Tamkang Review, Studies on Asia, minima sinica, Renditions, Jacobin; Shi tansuo, Dangdai zuojia pinglun, Xinshi pinglun, Jintian; Volkskrant, NRC, Trouw, De Groene Amsterdammer, de revisor, Raster, Armada, De Gids, Het trage vuur.
Authored monographs

• Walk on the Wild Side: Snapshots of the Chinese Poetry Scene” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture MCLC Resource Center, 2017 (a long essay reporting and reflecting on my fieldwork)
• 《精神与金钱时代的中国诗歌：从 1980年代到世纪初》[Poetry in Times of Mind and Money: From the 1980s to the Early 21^st Century], translated by Zhang Xiaohong 张晓红 in collaboration with the author, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2017.
• Chinese Poetry in Times of Mind, Mayhem, and Money (free download), Leiden: Brill, 2008, with a Chinese citations supplement (ibid), MCLC resource center, 2017; translated as Jingshen yu jinqian shidai de Zhongguo shige: cong 1980 niandai dao 21 shiji chu by Zhang Xiaohong in collaboration with the author, Beijing: Peking University Press, 2017
• Language Shattered: Contemporary Chinese Poetry and Duoduo (free download), Leiden: CNWS, 1996

Online resources for research and education

• “Unofficial Poetry Journals from China,” Leiden University Libraries (digital full-text collection with tips for further reading and viewing, including an extensive web lecture
• “ Avant-Garde Poetry from the People’s Republic of China: A Bibliography of Scholarly and Critical Books in Chinese”, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture MCLC Online Resource Center, 2008
• “ Avant-Garde Poetry from the People's Republic of China: A Bibliography of Single-Author and Multiple-Author Collections”, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture MCLC Online Resource Center, 2008
• “ Unofficial Poetry Journals from the People’s Republic of China: A Research Note and an Annotated Bibliography”, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture MCLC Online Resource Center, 2007

Edited volumes

• Chinese Poetry and Translation: Rights and Wrongs, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019 (first editor, with Lucas Klein)
• Chinese Poetry and Translation: Moving the Goalposts, special double issue of the Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese (14.2–15.1), 2017
• Text, Performance, and Gender in Chinese Literature and Music: Essays in Honor of Wilt Idema, Leiden: Brill, 2009 (first editor, with Tianyuan Tan and Michel Hockx)

Textbooks

• editor of Ans van Broekhuizen-De Rooij, Inez Kretzschmar and Fresco Sam-Sin Chinees in tien verdiepingen [Chinese in Ten Storeys], Vols 1 and 2, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008-2009; since acquired by Leiden University Press and regularly reprinted
• with Lin Chin-hui, Paint Feet on a Snake: An Intermediate Mandarin Reader, simplified and full-form character editions, Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2015 

Translations

• Ho-lan hsien-tai shih-hsüan [Anthology of Modern Dutch Poetry], Taipei: Taiyuan jijinhui, 2001 (with Ma Gaoming and Ku Pi-ling: expanded edition of 1988 Helan xiandai shixuan)
• Bei Dao, Landschap boven nul [Landscape over Zero], Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 2001 (poetry)
• Duoduo, Er is geen nieuwe dag [There Is No Dawn], Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1996 (poetry)
• Duoduo, Ik begrijp het niet [I Don’t Understand], Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1996 (essays, with Michel Hockx)
• Duoduo, Tatouages [Tattoos], Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1995 (short stories, with Michel Hockx)
• Duoduo, Een schrijftafel in de velden [A Writing-Table in the Fields], Amsterdam, Meulenhoff, 1991 (poetry)
• Een onafzienbaar ogenblik: Chinese dichters van nu [Moment with No End in Sight: Chinese Poets Today], Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1990 (with Lloyd Haft)
• Bei Dao, Golven [Waves], Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1989 (novel)
• Helan xiandai shixuan [Anthology of Modern Dutch Poetry], with Ma Gaoming, Guilin: Lijiang, 1988; second edition in 2005, by Guangxi shifan danxue

Teaching

Courses taught include:

• Mandarin (various levels and modalities)
• Introduction to Chinese Literature and Art
• Chinese Literature: Prose through the Ages
• Chinese Literature: Theater and Poetry through the Ages
• Literary Worlds of Modern China
• The Yan’an Talks and Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature
• Modern Chinese Poetry
• Chinese Literature and Exile
• Chinese-Dutch and Chinese-English literary translation
• China’s New Workers and the Politics of Culture
• Critical Area Studies: Placing Your Research
• Discipline and Place in the Humanities and the Social Sciences
• The Many Faces of Translation: Language, Culture, Power, Art
• The Uses of Translation
• Principles and Pragmatics of Research
• Academic Skills Training
• Scientific Integrity

PhD supervision

• Zhang Xiaohong, "The Invention of a Discourse: Women’s Poetry from Contemporary China," degree awarded in 2004, with Douwe Fokkema and Mineke Schipper-de Leeuw
• Mark Leenhouts, "Leaving the World to Enter the World: Han Shaogong and Chinese Root-Seeking Fiction," degree awarded in 2005, with Lloyd Haft
• Michael Day, “China's Second World of Poetry: The Sichuan Avant-Garde, 1982-1992," degree awarded in 2005
• Paul van Els, “The Wenzi: Philology, Philosophy, Intertextuality,” degree awarded in 2006, with Carine Defoort
• Silvia Marijnissen, "From Transparency to Artificiality: Modern Chinese Poetry from Taiwan after 1949," degree awarded in 2008, with Lloyd Haft
• Paramita Paul, "Wandering Saints: Chan Eccentrics in the Art and Culture of Song and Yuan China," degree awarded in 2009, with Oliver Moore
• Jeroen Groenewegen, "The Performance of Identity in Chinese Popular Music," degree awarded in 2011, with Wim van der Meer
• Lena Scheen, "Writing Shanghai: Urban Experience in Contemporary Chinese Fiction," degree awarded in 2013
• Audrey Heijns, "Translating China: Dutch Sinologist Henri Borel," degree awarded in 2016, with Barend ter Haar
• Chan Pui-lun, “Periphery Matters: Peking Opera in Hong Kong,” degree awarded in 2017, with Wilt Idema
• Joanna Krenz, “Essayization and Emigration in Contemporary Chinese Literature,” degree awarded in 2018, with Izabella Łabędzka
• Wu Jinhua, “Education and Poetic Identity in Contemporary Chinese Poetry,” degree awarded in 2020, with Gabrielle van den Berg
• Yang Lan-yi, “Chinese ‘Poetry of the Nineties’,” degree awarded in 2022, with Gabrielle van den Berg
• Jiang Ye, “Jade from the Other Mountain: Chinese Fan Fiction based on English Source Texts,” degree awarded in 2023, with Ernst van Alphen and Ivo Smits
• Liu Shuang, “Vulnerable Yet Resilient: Representations of Migrant Workers in Contemporary Chinese Prose,” degree awarded in 2023, with Svetlana Kharchenkova
• Milan Ismangil, “A Special Territory: Visions of Hong Kong and Its People,” degree awarded in 2025, with Florian Schneider
• Peng Wenxuan, “Pop-Cultural Representation of Genders and Sexualities on Social Media Platforms in China,” with Florian Schneider, degree expected in 2025
• Anne Sytske Keijser, “Nieh Hua-ling’s Fiction,” degree expected in 2026, with Wilt Idema
• Ye Yunnan, “The Development of Chinese Labor Migration and Entrepreneurship in the GCC States,” degree expected in 2025, with Crystal Ennis and Tsolin Nalbantian
• Wang Ying-ting, “Self-Efficacy Beliefs and Self-Assessment in Dutch Students of Chinese as a Foreign Language: A Longitudinal Study,” degree expected in 2026, with Nivja de Jong and Tessa Mearns
• Marc Gilbert, “Communist Reportage on the Chinese Civil War,” degree expected in 2028, with Limin Teh

Editorial work

• Series editor, with Barend ter Haar, of Sinica Leidensia, Brill Publishers, 2009-2021

Grants, awards, tokens of esteem

• Elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academcy of Arts & Sciences (KNAW, since 2022)
• Featured Scholar in Chinese Literature Today vol 8 no 1 (2019): 102–145
• Hanban Understanding China fellowship, December 2016 to May 2017
• Netherlands Organization for Scientitic Research (NWO) write-up grant, 2003
• Netherlands Organization for Scientitic Research (NWO) Talent Stipend, 1996 (predecessor to the Rubicon grant scheme; declined when appointed lecturer at the University of Sydney)
• Leiden University four-year full PhD Funding, 1991-1995
• Nederlands Letterenfonds, several translation grants, 1988-1997
• China Artistic Freedom Poetry Award, 2023
• Lishan Poetry Award for fieldwork on Chinese poetry, 2022
• Rougang Poetry Award, 2013, for contributions to scholarship on Chinese poetry

Administration and service to the profession (selection)

• Member, Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center Committee on Scientific Integrity (since 2020)
• Director of Doctoral Studies, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), since 2018
• Academic Director, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), 2009–2016
• Chairperson, executive committee, LeidenGlobal, 2013–2016
• Member, International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) Board, 2009–2016
• Member, Humanities Council, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), 2004–2007
• Member, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) Committee for the coordination of scientific and educationary contacts with China, 2002–2004
• Member, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) committee on “little-studied” languages and civilizations, 2001–2002
• Board Member, Leiden University Research School for Asian, Amerindian, and African Studies (CNWS), 1999–2002
• Secretary to the Hulsewé-Wazniewski Foundation for the Advancement of the Study of Chinese Archeology, Art and Material Culture at Leiden University (HWS), since 1999
• Head of Chinese Studies, Leiden University, 2000–2002 and 2006–2009
• Advisor to Poetry International Rotterdam, since 1987

Publications

Activities