Zhuming Yao

Spring 2025 Office Hours: Tuesdays 2:00-4:00, Thursdays 1:00-2:00, and by appointment

Zhuming Yao is a scholar of classical Chinese literature of the early and early imperial eras (ca. tenth century BCE – third century CE). He is particularly interested in the intersections of textual and literary criticism, of poetics and hermeneutics, and of book and literary history. In his research and teaching, Zhuming draws broadly from other literary traditions, aiming to foster dialogues between early Chinese studies and the larger field of comparative antiquity.

Zhuming’s current book project examines speech representation across early Chinese writings and offers an account of the underlying poetics of this prominent rhetorical exercise favored by poets, historians, and philosophers alike. The project highlights writing’s role in constructing the discursive appeal of the oral form, an approach that reconceptualizes the relationship between writing and orality in early China.

Zhuming’s other interests include the philological “remaking” of classical Chinese literature. He takes a broad view of how literature goes through historical processes of reception, (re)organization, (re)interpretation, and (re)valuation. These philological efforts, broadly conceived, contribute to the continued relevance of classical Chinese literature but also exert changing pressure on what “literature” and its related concepts mean and entail. For a representative work, see “Beyond Authenticity: Genre, Rhetoric, and the Iterability of Shangshu Speeches,” T’oung Pao 110.3-4 (2024): 255-304.

Before joining BU, Zhuming received his PhD from Princeton University (2023) and taught for a year at Swarthmore College. Outside of research, Zhuming translates scholarship for readers of Chinese and English. Some of the translations have appeared in Wenxue pinglun 文學評論, Wen shi zhe 文史哲, Bamboo and Silk, and books series by Sanlian shudian 三聯書店 and Nanjing daxue chubanshe 南京大學出版社.