Education
- 2022: Ph.D. in Asian and Transcultural Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice and Heidelberg University.
- 2018: M.A. in History and Asian Studies, University of Bologna.
- 2013: B.A. in Asian Languages, Markets and Cultures, University of Bologna.
Research abroad and additional training
- 2021 (November-December) Visiting scholar at the Unofficial Poetry Journals from China special collection, Leiden University.
- 2019-20 (September-January) Senior visiting student in contemporary Chinese literature and cultural studies, Peking University.
- 2019 (July) Summer school in "Modern Asian Literatures and Cultures", Palacký University Olomouc.
- 2017 (November-December) Fieldwork at Peking University on contemporary Chinese urban literature.
- 2017 (May-October) Chinese-Italian literary translation workshop, Confucius Institute of the University of Milan & Civica Scuola Interpreti e Traduttori "Altiero Spinelli".
- 2014-15 (September-June) 1-year advanced Chinese language course, Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Scholarships and awards
- Funding for coordinating an Erasmus+ Blended Initiative Programme (BIP), University of Bologna (2024).
- 1-semester Joint Research Ph.D. Fellowship, Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters (May 2019).
- 3-year PhD full scholarship, Italian Ministry of University/Ca' Foscari University of Venice (September 2018).
- Grant to conduct M.A. thesis-related fieldwork at Peking University, School of Humanities of the University of Bologna (June 2017).
- Second prize, 15th Hanyuqiao/Chinese Bridge Chinese Proficiency Competition, Italy-San Marino (April 2016).
- Hanban scholarship for a full academic year in China (June 2014).
Academic career
- 2024-present Assistant Professor (Fixed-term Researcher in Tenure Track), Bologna University.
- 2023-24 Adjunct Lecturer, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
- 2022-24 Postdoctoral Research Fellow in contemporary Chinese literature, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
- 2022-24 Adjunct Lecturer, Bologna University.
- 2021-24 Educational Assistant for the "Global Asian Studies" Minor, Ca' Foscari International College.
- 2019-23 Teaching assistant in Chinese language, translation and society, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.
Research activity
Organisation of academic conferences and research projects
- (2025) Scientific and organizing committee member, 20th Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, University of Bologna, 11-13 September.
- (2025) Organizer (with Francesco Vitucci), "Re-semantizing Gender Stereotypes in 21st-Century Asian Societies" workshop, University of Bologna, 19 March.
- (2021) Organizing committee, international conference "On the Boundaries of Here and Now", Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 3-5 February.
Participation in research centres, groups and networks
Participation in scientific and editorial committees
Papers at academic conferences
- (2025) Exile as translation, translation as exile: Yang Lian’s translational poetics - 2025 Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, online, 29 May-1 June.
- (2025) The Chinese 2000s as interregnum? A possible response through the prism of literature - Interregnum - Delving Into the Possibilities of the In-between, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 14-16 April.
- (2024) Sinophone social poetics through art in Italy: the Wuxu collective - Sinophone Europe: Exploring Cultural Expressions and Identities, University of Florence, 13-14 December.
- (2024) Rebel couch potatoes: the trope of passivity in China's state discourse and tangping (laying-flat) poetry - Apathy and Activation: Rethinking Political Passivity in Authoritarian and Hybrid Regimes, Göttingen University, 15-16 November.
- (2024) Everyday (extra)ordinary aesthetics of the subaltern poet: Yu Xiuhua and worker authors - 17th CCVA Annual Conference: (Extra)Ordinary Living: Aesthetics in Contemporary China, Nanjing University of the Arts, 9-10 November.
- (2024) Ultra-unreal, ultra-fictional: Ning Ken’s literary probing into the (un)reality of postsocialist China - 25th Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies, Tallinn University, 27-30 August.
- (2024) Literary sailings across the urban sea: liquid narrative space(s) and the sea metaphor in Xu Zechen’s fiction - PhD Symposium on Metaphors: Conceptualising Horizons of Meaning, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 26-28 February.
- (2023) The (un)reality of labour: worker writer Wan Huashan's 'avant-gardist' narrative - 1st OBERT Conference: Narrating Labour: Posture and Positionality, Aux-Marseille Université, 28-30 June.
- (2022) Recognitions and misrecognitions of Chinese migrant workers’ poetry: the case of the Picun Literature Group - Generation Asia: 2022 Nordic NIAS Council Conference, University of Iceland, 22-26 August.
- (2021) L'arte come pratica sociale nella migrazione cinese in Italia: il caso di WUXU - 18th Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, University of Turin, 18-20 November.
- (2021) Urban queer mobility in China and Mu Cao's poetry of abjection - FRINGE/ALUS Symposium: Urban (Im)mobilities and Borderland Narratives, University of Alcalá, 14-15 October.
- (2021) Worker: silent as a riddle. Gongren identity in Chinese worker poetry - 23rd Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies, Leipzig University, 24-28 August.
- (2021) Tame the hooligan: LGBTQ representations in China's pink capitalism - Queer Representations: Pasts, Presents, Futures, University of Edinburgh, 11-14 May.
- (2021) From the margins of city and literature. The representation of Beijing in the Picun literature group's ouevre and the right to recognition(s) - China from the Margins: New Narratives of Past and Present, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 16-17 April.
- (2021) "La mano verso il sole, il piede nella fabbrica": poetica dei lavoratori migranti e politica culturale in Cina" - Vulnerabilità e resilienza: Voci e pratiche dai margini, Università degli Studi di Milano, 17-19 March.
- (2020) Whose voices, again? Issues around migrant-worker poetry as a medium for subaltern voices - 14th Annual Conference on Asian Studies: Voiced and Voiceless in Asia, Palacký University Olomouc, 20-21 November.
- (2020) Yours the slogans, yours the praise. (Self-)narratives in China during the epidemic - 13th CCVA Annual Conference: The World, Two Metres Away, Birmingham City University, 9-10 November.
- (2020) The great absentee. Centre, periphery and gentrification in Beijing through migrant-worker literature - Representing Urban Change: Gentrification and Displacement in Literature and other Media, Uppsala University, 21 August
- (2019) Writing the country and meaning the city. Rural space, city and identity of authors in contemporary Chinese migrant-worker literature - Transcultural Connections: Migration in Asia, Europe and the Americas, Heidelberg University, 21-22 June.
- (2019) Migrant-worker writing in the social space of China's contemporary city - 11th Asian Dynamics Initiative Conference - PhD Workshop "The Asian City", University of Copenhagen, 18-19 June.
- (2019) Strangers in a familiar city? The urban space of Beijing seen and written by Picun migrant poets - The Transcultural Production of the Urban Space in Eurasia, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 20-21 February.
- (2018) Family restructuring, marital crises and left-behind children and wives in Fan Yusu and Xu Zechen's stories - The invisible within: actors, relationships and activities in Chinese migrant families, University of Central Lancashire, 15-16 November.
- (2018) Gendered migration. City, countryside and gender in Xu Zechen's migrant fiction - 9th International Symposium for Young Researchers in Translation, Interpreting, Intercultural Studies and East Asian Studies, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, 29 June.
Teaching activity
University of Bologna
- Chinese Literature (M.A.) - 2024-present
- Chinese Literature 2 (B.A) - 2024-present
- Chinese Language (M.A.) - 2022-2024
Ca' Foscari University of Venice
- Chinese Language 3.1 (B.A., business Chinese) - 2023-24
- Chinese Language 1.1 (M.A.) - 2023-24
- Chinese Language 2 (M.A.) - 2023-24
- Chinese Literature 2 (B.A.) - 2023
- Chinese Language 2.2 (B.A.) - 2023
- Chinese Language 1.2 (B.A.) - 2023
Guest lectures and invited talks
- (2024) "Solitude and community, singular and plural, poet and class: overlaps in workers’ poetry", Solitude and Community in Contemporary Chinese Culture, University of Oxford, 15 May.
- (2024) "'Alta' o 'popolare'? La poesia operaia cinese a partire dal caso di Xiao Hai", Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 14 May.
- (2023) "Spazi di autogestione culturale nella Cina di oggi: il caso di Picun", University of Milan, 13 November.
- (2023) "Realism, un-reality, and pararealism: Ning Ken and his fiction", The Makers of Modern Chinese Literature, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, 17 July.
- (2023) "Quanto è 'cinese' questa letteratura? La poesia operaia cinese e le opportunità metodologiche di un approccio globale agli studi letterari", Sfide e criticità nelle ricerche sulla Cina: metodologie, fonti e approcci teorici, AISC, 27 March.
- (2021) "Il passato al servizio del presente: riletture di storia e pensiero cinese durante la campagna contro Lin Biao e Confucio (1974)", L'Orientale University of Naples, 13 December.
- (2021) "Chinese workers' literature between the old and the new", Leiden University, 29 November..
- (2021) "A Fieldwork into New Workers' Culture in Picun, Beijing", University of Cincinnati, 27 October.
- (2021) "Margins and Recognition(s) in the Practice of the Picun 'New Workers' Literature Group", Leiden University, 13 October.
- (2020) "Esperimenti di autogestione culturale a Pechino", Università di Bologna, 3 November.
- (2020) "La Cina scritta dal basso. Scrittori e poeti operai nella Cina di oggi", Convitto Nazionale Cicognini (Prato), 9 October.
- (2019) "Picun's writers in the literary field of Beijing; Beijing in the literary works of Picun's writers", University of Chicago Center in Beijing, 3 December.
- (2018) "Contrordine compagni! Il linguaggio omosessuale in Cina", Università di Bologna, 7-8 November.
Memberships
Institutional duties at the University of Bologna
- 2024-present: Member, Quality Assurance Committee, BA Degree Programme in Foreign Languages and Literatures.
- 2024-present: Academic tutor for internships, MA Degree Programme in Italian Language and Culture for Foreigners.
- 2024-present: Member, Transfer and Progression Committee, MA Degree Programme in Italian Language and Culture for Foreigners.
- 2024-present: Member, Friendly Administration Committee, LILEC department.
- 2024-present: Member, Public Engagement Committee, LILEC department.
- 2024-present: Member, Board of the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (LILEC).
Relevant extra-academic activities
Last update: 31 January 2025.
