Tonglu Li

Associate Professor of Chinese

Contact

Dept:World Languages And Cultures
Email:tongluli@iastate.edu
Office:2244 Pearson
505 Morrill Rd.
Ames IA
50011-2103
Phone:515-294-0836
Website:https://iastate.academia.edu/TongluLi
Vita:https://iastate.app.box.com/s/ofzry8tdgr1lipd5z5nlsgsrhltg713t

Area of expertise: Chinese literature and culture

Topics of interest: 20th century Chinese literature and intellectual history with a focus on the issues of enlightenment/nationalism/violence and belief

Bio

Originally coming from China, he received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009. He has been teaching Chinese language, literature and culture at ISU for 11 years.

Grants and Awards


  • CEAH Research Scholarship, Iowa State University, 2014, 2017.

  • McClain Faculty Fellowship, Iowa State University, 2014.

  • LAS Award for International Service, Iowa State University, 2018.

Recent / Major Publications

Book Chapters

  • “Modern Chinese Essays: Zhou Zuoren, Lin Yutang and Others.” The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature, edited by Gu Ming Dong. Routledge, 2018, pp.290–302.

  • “Zhao Shuli and Sun Li’s Novels: Chronicles of New Peasantry.” The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature, edited by Gu Ming Dong. Routledge, 2018, pp.305–317.

  • “Mo Yan’s Fiction: Human Existence beyond Good and Evil.” The Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature, edited by Gu Ming Dong. Routledge, 2018, pp.569–579.


Refereed Journal Articles

  • “Mo Yan’s Frog and the Competing Discourses on the Reconstruction of Cultural Memory on Birth and Birth Control.” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Literature, 15 (2016): 189–220.

  • “Exploring the Cultural Memory of the Common People: Desire, Violence, and Divinity in Mo Yan’s Sandalwood Death (2001).” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 42.1 (2016) 25–48.

  • “‘Stay Loyal to the Earth’: The Transcendental, the Teleological, and the Quotidian in Zhou Zuoren’s (1885-1967) Reflections on Modern Life.” Asia Major, 28, part 2 (2015) 109–145.

  • “Trauma, Play, Memory: Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and Mo Yan’s Strategies for Writing History as Story.” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 9, no. 2 (2015) 235–258.

  • “The Sacred and the Cannibalistic: Zhou Zuoren’s Critique of Violence in Modern China.” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, 36 (2014): 25–60.

  • “Beyond the Nation-State Paradigm: On the Reconstruction of Cultural Subjectivity and Universalism in China.” Frontiers of Literary Theory (Wenxue Lilun Qianyan), 11 (2014): 25–53.

  • “To Believe or Not to Believe: Zhou Zuoren’s Alternative Approaches to the Chinese Enlightenment.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Spring 25, no. 1 (2013): 206–260.

  • “Language Practicum: the ‘Interface’ Between Classroom Learning and Real-world Communication.” Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies, 3 (2012): 50–57.