Junsong Chen

Professional Affiliations: 

2005-present, China Association of Sino-Foreign Literary & Arts Theories (Narratology Chapter)

2012-2013, American Comparative Literature Association

2016-present, Shanghai International Studies Association

2016-present, Shanghai Foreign Literature Association

Research Interests:

19th- and 20th- Century American literature;

18th Century British literature;

Literary theories and criticism;

Narratology;

Comparative literature;

Cultural memory studies

Courses Taught:

Undergraduate: American literature, British literature, Modern American Poetry, Western Civilization

Graduate: Narrative Theories, Twentieth Century Literary Theories and Criticism, Introduction to Comparative Literature

Research Projects:

• Cultural Memory and the Literary Reconstruction of Postwar American Politics, National Social Science Foundation of China.

• Cultural Memory and Trauma Narrative in Don DeLillo’s Fiction, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation.

• The Political Dimension of Contemporary American Fiction, Shanghai Municipal Social Science Foundation.

BOOK

Political Engagement in Contemporary American Historiographic Metafiction. Tianjin: Nankai University Press, 2013.

A Study on Cultural Memory of Post-war America in the Fiction of Don DeLillo. Beijing:  Science Press, 2021. 

BOOK CHAPTERS

“Bhabba, Homi.”A Companion to American Literature. Ed. Yu Jianhua. Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2015. (50 entries altogether)

TRANSLATIONS (English into Chinese)

Samuel Beckett. Proust. Trans. Junsong Chen. Changsha: Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House, 2017.

Don DeLillo. The Angel Esmeralda: Nine Stories. Trans. Junsong Chen. Nanjing: Yilin Press, 2015.

Carl G. Jung. The Development of Personality. Trans. Junsong Chen, et al. Beijing: International Culture Publishing Company, 2011.

Soren Kierkegaard. Either /Or: A Fragment of Life. Trans. Junsong Chen and Huang Dexian. Beijing: Guangming Daily Press, 2007.

JOURNAL ARTICALS

1. • “ ‘Engaged Literature’: Politics, the Political Novel and American Poltical Writing." Contemporary Foreign Literature 1(2021): 151-157.

2. • “Jewish Settlement in Shanghai during WWII in Fiction and Other Media of Cultural Memory.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 19. 1 (2021): 171-88.

3. • “‘Never Felt the Same about Again’: The ‘Moment of Crisis’ in Frank O’Connor’s ‘Guests of the Nation’.” English and American Literary Studies 33 (Fall 2020): 227-36. 

4. • “Family Order and the Southern Psyche: The Incest Complex in The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!” Foreign Language and Literature Research 6 (2019)：22-32.

5. • “Reconstructing ‘the Lived Memory’: Falling Man and the Literary Remembrance of ‘9 /11’” Foreign Literatures 4 (2019): 126-35.

6. • “The Opportunities and Challenges of World Literature: An Interview with Martin Puchner.”Foreign Literature Studies 5 (2019): 1-17.

7. • “American Literature Studies: Origins and Contemporary Trends.”Chinese Social Sciences Today August 26, 2019, 004.

8. • “The Rosenberg Case: Postmodern Fiction and the Construction of Cultural Memory.” Contemporary Foreign Literature 1(2019): 5-12.

9. • “An Encounter with and Defense of Modernism: Samuel Beckett’s Proust”. Book Town 3 (2017): 84-86.

10. • “‘Every Book Has Its Own Voice’: An Interview with E. L. Doctorow.” English and American Literary Studies 24 (Spring 2016) : 17-26.

11. • “On the Effective Models of Teaching English Literature: Based on the Theories of Instructional System Design.” Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice 2 (2016): 22-27.

12. • “Cultural Memory Criticism: Toward an Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Approach to Literary Studies.” Contemporary Foreign Literature 1 (2016): 159-66.

13. • “Witnesses of the Twentieth Century: A Review of E. L. Doctorow’s Homer & Langley.” Book Town 1 (2016): 103-05.

14. • “Living in Dangerous Time: The Poetics of Terror in Don DeLillo’s Short Stories.” Foreign Literature 3 (2014): 3-11.

15. • “Integration of Mythological Naturalism with Poetic Language: The Narrative Strategy in John Steinbeck’s Fiction.” Foreign Language Learning Theory and Practice 4 (2013): 88-92.

16. • “Historical Trauma and Literary Representation: The Assassination of JFK and the Refutation of ‘Official Truth’ in DeLillo’s Libra.” Foreign Literatures 2 (2012): 138-45.

17. • “Political Engagement in Contemporary American Historiographic Metafiction.”English and American Literary Studies, Vol. 14 Spring 2011: 369-76.

18. • “Getting inside of the Stories: An Interview with Robert Coover.” Foreign Literature 2 (2011): 146-55.

19. • “The Female World in John Steinbeck’s Fiction.” The World Literature Criticism 1 (2010): 150-54.

20. • “Keeping Fiction Alive: An Interview with Don DeLillo.” Foreign Literature Studies 1 (2010): 1-11.

21. • “Unreliable Narration Revisited.” Tianjin Foreign Studies University Journal 1 (2010): 55-60.

22. • “A Distant Inheritance: The Poetry of Elizabeth Bishop and the American Transcendentalism.” Journal of Cambridge Studies Vol. 4. No. 4 December 2009: 127-35.

23. • “Dwelling in the Ambiguity of History: An Interview with E. L. Doctorow.” Foreign Literature 4 (2009): 86-91.

24. • “The Replenishment of the Novel: Parody and Deconstruction in John Fowles and Donald Barthelme’s Fiction.” Journal of Xuzhou Normal University: 1 (2009): 48-52.

25. • “Transcending the Boundary of ‘Leftist Literature’: Biblical Metaphors in John Steinbeck’s Fiction.” Masterpieces Review: 4 (2008):114-16.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

• “The Rise of Modern Chinese Short Story and the Western Tradition of the Genre”, The 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, East China Normal University, China, July 2016.

• “Shanghai Legacy: The Jewish Settlement in Shanghai during the Nazi Era.” China Experience and Western Perspective. East China Normal University, Shanghai, June 2014.
• “Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s International Novel: London and Shanghai in When We Were Orphans.” Radical London: Critical Perspectives on Colonialism, Migration and “Englishness.” University of East London, U.K., July 2013.
• “Collective Memory and Literary Expression: The Rosenberg Case and Postmodern Reconstruction of History.” Memory: Comparative Approaches to Culture. Cornell University, U.S.A., February 2013.
• “The Collapse of Order and Survival of Hope: A Reading of Fortress Besieged and The Grapes of Wrath.” American Comparative Literature Association annual meeting. Brown University, U.S.A., March 2012.
• “Family Order and the Southern Psyche: The Incest Complex in Faulkner’s Fiction.” Forum on foreign languages and literatures by Peking University, Tamkang University and East China Normal University, June 2011.
• “Translation and the Rise of China’s Soft Power: A Historical Perspective.” International Conference on Translation and Asian Studies. The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, April 2010.

AWARDS

• Excellent Paper Award, China Association for the Study of American Literature, 2021.

• Elected to Shanghai Pujiang Talent Program, 2020.

• Outstanding Research Award, awarded by Shanghai International Studies Association, 2017.

• Award for Excellence in Teaching for Graduate Students, awarded by East China Normal University, 2016.

• ECNU Award for Excellence in Teaching for Graduate Students, 2016.

• ECNU School of Foreign Languages Award for Excellence in Teaching for Undergraduate Students, 2013.