ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2610-2665

Yizhuo Li is a scholar specialising in late-imperial Chinese literature (Ming-Qing wenxue), with a focus on drama and vernacular literature. Her research also extends to questions of gender and sexuality, self-exploration in women's writing, and cultural-historical contexts of the early modern period. She completed her undergraduate studies in Chinese literature at Fudan University (BA 2018), followed by an MPhil at the University of Hong Kong (2020). She received her Ph.D. from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge (2024).

Yizhuo is currently working on a book manuscript based on her doctoral dissertation, which examines the drama repertoire of "bad beauties" and the aesthetics of female menace in urban theatre during the Qing dynasty, when miscellaneous local operatic traditions, or Flowery Operas (huabu), flourished. She has published journal articles in both English and Chinese, featuring mythological female figures such as a goddess who leads demons and a demoness associated with floods.

Ming-Qing drama, theatre studies, fictional narratives, other forms of oral and performing literature, perspectives of gender and sexuality, dynamics of aesthetic distinctions, and the intersection of literature with cultural history.

I am happy to supervise graduate students whose research topics engage with Ming-Qing literature, as well as with broader questions of religion, material culture, local customs, etc., during the early modern period.

CAH2611 & GE2137 Sources of Literature, Cultural Heritage, and History

CAH3138 Classical Chinese Fiction and Xiqu

CAH5701-CZ1 Classical Chinese Literature

CAH5732 Gender Perspectives on Chinese Literature