Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese
Fall 2018 Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-2pm or by appointment.
Noga Ganany is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies. Before receiving her PhD. from Columbia University (2018), Noga studied in Israel, France, China, and Japan. Her research focuses on the interplay between literature and religion in late-imperial China, primarily during the Ming and Qing dynasties. She is also interested in the history of the book, travel and pilgrimage, popular culture, and religious practice. Her current book project examines a genre of hagiographic narratives portraying the lives of heroes, gods, and immortals. Through the prism of these books, she explores the role that commercial publishing played in reshaping the lore and worship of cultural icons in late Ming, while raising questions about our understanding of book consumption and the concept of literature in premodern China. Noga’s second book project is an interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of death and the afterlife in premodern China. The main focus of this project is King Yama of Hell, a central figure in religious practice surrounding death and a recurring trope in literature and drama.
Noga’s recent articles include “Jigong,” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming 2018), “Baogong as King Yama in the Literature and Religious Worship of Late-Imperial China” (Asia Major, 2015), “Journeys Through Hell in Late Ming Hagiographic Narratives” (under review), and “Ritual Appendices in Late-Ming Narrative Texts” (in progress).
Noga’s research was supported by grants from the Eisenberg Foundation, the Weatherhead Institute, the Mellon Foundation, and the Borg Foundation. Her dissertation, titled “Origin Narratives: Reading and Reverence in Late-Ming China,” was awarded the William Theodore de Bary Prize in 2018.
Courses:
Masterpieces of Classical Chinese Literature (CAS LC 250), Fall 2018
Death, Hell, and the Afterlife in Chinese Literature (CAS LC 285), Fall 2018
Love and Lust in Chinese Writing (CAS LC 316), Spring 2019
From Temples to Television: Popular Culture and Religious Practice in China (CAS LC 470), Spring 2019