Professor Dr. Paula Varsano

Biography

Paula Varsano is a Professor in the Chinese Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She earned her B.A. in East Asian Studies from Yale University and her Ph.D. in Chinese Literature from Princeton University. Her research focuses on classical poetry and poetics, particularly in the eleventh century, with a specific interest in literature and subjectivity, the evolution of spatial representation in poetry, and the history of poetics alongside traditional literary criticism. She has published articles in reputable journals such as the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, and Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture, as well as Asia Major and Representations. Furthermore, she is the author of "Tracking the Banished Immortal: The Poetry of Li Bo and Its Critical Reception" (Hawaii, 2003), the translator of François Jullien's "Eloge de la fadeur" (Praise of Blandness, Zone Books, 2004), and the editor of "The Rhetoric of Hiddenness in Traditional Chinese Culture" (SUNY, 2016). She has a forthcoming book titled "Knowing the Known: The Lyric Subject in Traditional Chinese Poetry and Poetics."

Research Interests