I am a historian of late medieval and early modern China (14-18th c.). I am mostly interested in exploring the history of Chinese political institutions, literati culture, and gender and family. My current research is focused on examining the intersection of bureaucracy, law, and society in the Ming dynasty.

More information about Ying Zhang

Fields of interest

Premodern China
Political culture, government, gender and family systems

Research

My research is cross-disciplinary. Trained in History and Women's Studies, I integrate historical studies, Sinology, and gender studies in my work. I am interested in a wide range of methodologies in the humanities and social sciences.

Grants and awards

Aug.-Dec. 2022 Nina Maria Gorrissen Fellow in History, American Academy in Berlin (Germany)
Jan.-April 2019 Senior International Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham 
University (Durham, U.K.)
Sept. 2017-May 2018 Member, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study (IAS, 
Princeton, U.S.A.)
2012-2013 UCLA Visiting Scholar at William Andrews Clark Memorial Library (in place of 
Ahmanson-Getty Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCLA Center For 17th- And 18th Century Studies) 

Selected publications

English:
Religion and Prison Art in Ming China (1368-1644): Creative Environment, Creative Prisoners. Brill 
Research Perspectives Series (2020) 3:3:1-102. 

Confucian Image Politics: Masculine Morality in Seventeenth-Century China (Seattle: University of 
Washington Press, 2016) 

“Domestic Violence in a Pre-modern Context: The Case of Plum in the Golden Vase,” in Approaches to Teaching Plum in the Golden Vase, ed. Andrew Schonebaum (New York: MLA, 2022), 230-252.

“The Green Peony and The Swallow’s Letter: Drama and Politics,” in How to Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology, eds. Patricia Sieber and Regina Llamas (NY: Columbia University Press, 2022), 235-256. 

“Image Trouble, Gender Trouble: Was Li Zhi an Enlightened Man?” in The Objectionable Li Zhi: 
Fiction, Syncretism, and Dissent in Late Ming China, eds. Haun Saussy, Pauline Lee, and Rivi Handler-Spitz (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2021), 111-131.

“The Confucian Ideal Friend,” in The Ming World, ed. Kenneth M. Swope (NY: Routledge, 2019), 241-257.

“Confucian Principles and Representations of a Scandal: Writing about Zheng Man in the 
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” Intellectual History [Sixiang shi 思想史] (Taipei) no. 5 (2016): 157-214.

“The Politics and Practice of Moral Rectitude in the Late Ming: The Case of Huang Daozhou (1585-1646).” Late Imperial China, Vol. 34 no. 2 (Dec. 2013): 52-82.

Wang, Zheng and Ying Zhang, “Global Concepts, Local Practices: Chinese Feminism since the Fourth UN Conference on Women.” Feminist Studies, Vol. 36 no. 1 (Spring 2010): 40-70.

Chinese:
Zhang, Ying and Wang Zheng, eds. Nanxing yanjiu 男性研究 [Masculinity Studies] (Shanghai: Shanghai Sanlian Publishing House, 2012).