Qingjun (Joan) Li
Professor of Asian Studies and Chinese
College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
Ph. D., Middle Tennessee State University, Specialization: Chinese American Literature, Humanities of East Asia, Chinese Language Pedagogy
Location: Ayers 3046
615.460.6315qingjun.li@belmont.edu
Biography
Dr. Qingjun (Joan) Li is a native from mainland China. She received her B.A. in English from Zhengzhou University, P.R. China and M.A. in English from Belmont University. She holds a Ph.D. in English (American Literature) from Middle Tennessee State University. Her dissertation, entitled “Emerging Trends and Voices in Maxine Hong Kingston Criticism: The Woman Warrior and China Men in Recent Scholarship in Mainland China,” focuses specifically on an analysis and comparative study of the reception and interpretations of Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior and China Men in current mainland Chinese scholarship. Prior to coming to the U.S., she was an Associate Professor of English at Zhengzhou University, where she was twice recognized as a University Teacher of Excellence.
Dr. Li’s research area includes Chinese American literature, Comparative Literature, Asian Studies, and Chinese language pedagogy. She is the author of three books and co-editor of Encountering China: Early Modern European Responses (Bucknell, 2012). She is also the author of numerous articles, including “Convergence of the Daodejing and Thoreau’s Political Writing in Nineteenth Century America,” “A Case Study of Kingston’s Use of ‘White’ in the ‘White Tigers,’” “The Transference of Literary Voice: Christina and Frances Rossetti,” and “Oriental Light Shining in Western Darkness: Thoreau’s Use of The Mengzi in Walden.”
At Belmont, Dr. Li teaches courses both in Asian Studies and Chinese language. She was recognized as the 2014-2015 Virginia M. Chaney Distinguished Professor and the 2017-2018 Faculty Award for Leadership in Christian Service. She was a recipient of an ASIANetwork Freeman Student-Faculty Research Fellowship grant and led a team of four Belmont students to do research in China. Her students have received Chinese Government Scholarships, Hanban Confucius Institute Scholarships, U.S. Critical Language Scholarships, and Fulbright Scholar award. Some of her students have taught in Chinese university or gained graduate degrees in China or in the U.S. She is the advisor of Chinese Cultural Association at Belmont and was named the 2018-2019 Advisor of the Year. Dr, Li has served as Co-Director for Belmont’s China study abroad programs since 2006, having taken hundreds of students to China.