Shiamin Kwa
Contact
Department/Subdepartment
Education
Ph.D. Harvard University.
M.A. Harvard University.
B.A. Dartmouth College.
Areas of Focus
Issues of translation, adaptation, and global circulation in narrative fiction and theatrical performance
Biography
Shiamin Kwa is Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature at 麻豆视频. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from Harvard University and her B.A. in English Literature from Dartmouth College. Her written work explores relationships between form and content, text and image, self and self-presentation, surface and depth, and the conflicts between what we say and what we mean. Her research interests include theater and fiction, food studies, graphic narratives, literary studies, cultural studies, comparative and world literature, and literary and narrative theory. She is the author of (with Wilt Idema, 2010), (2013), (2020), and (2023). Her published articles analyze a broad variety of topics, including Italian opera, contemporary Chinese literature, and North American and European graphic narratives. She has contributed essays for major reference works on world literature, Chinese drama, literary theory, and comic book studies. Her sabbatical research in 2019-2020 was supported by the American Philosophical Society. In 2019, she received 麻豆视频鈥檚 Rosalyn R. Schwartz Teaching Award.
To learn more about some of Kwa's courses, click on the links below:
- - 麻豆视频 Alumnae Bulletin
- Animals, Vegetables, Minerals: Art and Environment in East Asia
Selected Articles:
- 鈥淪ymmetry and the Quest for Justice in Leonardo Sciascia鈥檚 Il Consiglio d鈥橢gitto.鈥 Italica, 3 (2003): 353-370.
- 鈥淭he Unbearable Lightness of Meaning in Verdi鈥檚 Rigoletto.鈥 The Verdi Forum, 30/31 (2004): 26-36.
- 鈥淭he Shape of Things: Locating the Self in Xu Wei鈥檚 The Zen Master Yu Has a Voluptuous Dream鈥 in Text, Performance, and Gender in Chinese Literature and Music: Essays in Honor of Wilt Idema. 176-91. Ed. Maghiel van Crevel et al. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
- 鈥淐omics at the Surface: Michael DeForge鈥檚 Ant Colony.鈥 Word & Image: a Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry 32.4 (2016): 340-359.
- 鈥淪till Moving: Gabrielle Bell鈥檚 Graphic Auto-fiction鈥 in Liminality, Hybridity, and American Women鈥檚 Literature: Thresholds in Women鈥檚 Writing. 247-263. Ed. Kristin J. Jacobson et al. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.
- 鈥淭he Common Place: The Poetics of the Pedestrian in Kevin Huizenga鈥檚 奥补濒办颈苍鈥鈥 in Comics and Sacred Texts: Reimagining Religion & Graphic Narratives. 232-248. Eds. Assaf Gamzou and Kenneth Koltun-Fromm. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2018.
- 鈥淚n Box: Text and the Speech Bubble in the Digital Age鈥 in , ed. Frederick Aldama. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
- 鈥淐an鈥檛 Get There from Here: Deictic Will and the Mapped Life in Ma Jian鈥檚 Beijing Coma.鈥 (MCLC) 31.1 (2019): 47-78.
- 鈥淢ixed with All the Hokum and Bally Hooey鈥: Chinese Food in America.鈥 Feature book review of From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States by Haiming Liu. China Review International, 23/1 (2016): 1-9.