Yunjun Zhou's research interests center around the dynamic relationships between texts and images. Specifically, she is interested in how humans as visual objects of appraisal were perceived, viewed, defined, termed, ranked and valued in late imperial China; how these textual descriptions are selected, internalized, and transformed into pictorial devices, including but not limited to portraits, illustrations, game-cards, and other images derived from texts; and how these images, in return, reconstructed and redefined their originary texts and influenced the popularization, circulation, commercialization, and (re)interpretation of the texts. She is also interested in how technological, economic, social and epistemological changes interact with literary and pictorial portraits.

Publications:

Zhou, Yunjun. "History as Collage: The Evolution of Portrayals of Cao Cao in Chronology, Historiography, and the Historical Novel of the Three Kingdoms." CLEAR 46 (2024): 41–65.

Chou, Chih-p’ing, Yongtao Zhang, and Yunjun Zhou, eds. China’s Development and Dilemmas: Authentic Readings for Advanced Learners 中国的发展与困境: 现代汉语高级读本. 1st ed. Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2018.

Prior to joining Wesleyan University, she worked as a lecturer in East Asian Studies at Princeton University and served as a head instructor for the Princeton in Beijing (PiB) program.

Education:

Ph.D. Candidate, University of Chicago
MAPH, University of Chicago
M.S., University of Pennsylvania
B.A., Sun Yat-sen University