Underwood International College

Assistant Professor of Asian Studies

• Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Harvard University, 2017
• J.D., Harvard Law School, 2013
• A.B., summa cum laude, in Literature, Harvard University, 2008

Profile

Tony D. Qian specializes in the area of law and the humanities, focusing especially on East Asian law and literature from the medieval to the modern period, the relationship between literati and legal culture, and the evolution of crime fiction and legal narratives. His doctoral dissertation, “Beyond the Formal Law: Making Cases in Roman Controversiae and Tang Literary Judgments” (2017) explores the intersection of law and rhetoric in the Roman empire and the Tang dynasty. His research also examines translations of Western cultural and literary texts in China and East Asia at the turn of the twentieth century. Before arriving at Yonsei UIC, Professor Qian taught at Harvard, Tufts, and Seoul National University, and was a recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, the Korea Foundation Field Research Scholarship, and the Henry Luce Early Career Fellowship in China Studies. His current book project focuses on marriage controversies in law and fiction in late imperial China and Choson Korea.

Education

Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Harvard University, 2017
J.D., Harvard Law School, 2013
A.B., summa cum laude, in Literature, Harvard University, 2008

Courses and Current Research Areas

Courses taught at Yonsei:
Outlaws
Stranger Things in the Chinese Literary Tradition
The Traditional Chinese Novel: Then and Now

Current research areas:
Choson and late imperial Chinese legal rhetoric and narratives, East Asian reception/translation of Western literature, classical Chinese literature and the vernacular novel, Confucianism and contemporary culture, crime/detective fiction

Selected Publications

 "Passion and Passio: The Chahua nü and Late Qing Courtesan Narratives," Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (forthcoming)
 “Judicial Storytelling: Marriage Controversies in a Late Ming Case Collection,” Late Imperial China 44, no. 1 (2023): 1–40.
“Translation and Proselytization: James Legge’s Novelizations of Biblical Narratives,” 《中國語文學》 92 (2023): 331–65.
“Moral Sensibilities, Emotions, and the Law: Extralegal Considerations in Tang Literary Judgments on Spousal Relationships,” T’oung Pao 104 (2018): 251–93.
“Classical Learning and the Law: Erudition as Persuasion in the Dragon Sinews, Phoenix Marrow Judgments of Zhang Zhuo,” T’ang Studies 35 (2017): 20–50.