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Zairong Xiang

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke Kunshan University
DKU Faculty

Overview


Zairong Xiang is the author of Queer Ancient Way: A Decolonial Exploration (punctum books, 2018). His research spans across a wide range of disciplines in the arts, literature, religion, philosophy, gender/sexuality studies in English, Spanish, French and Chinese. He was the curator of the “minor cosmopolitan weekend” at the HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2018) and has edited its catalogue minor cosmopolitan: Thinking Art, Politics and the Universe Together Otherwise (Zurich/Paris: Diaphanes 2020). He co-curated the “2021 Guangzhou Image Triennial” at Guangdong Museum of Art as well as a special section of the 2022 Seoul Experimental Film Festival. Also at HKW Berlin, he has recently co-curated the exhibition-auditorium-publication project Ceremony (Burial of an Undead World) with Anselm Franke, Elisa Giuliano, Denise Ryner, and Claire Tancons.

He teaches Comparative Literature and Art at Duke Kunshan University. Working across multiple disciplines and languages, he is finishing his second book “Transdualism” and continues to research, through the lens of “Shanzhai,” on the cultural and artistic exchanges across the Global South, especially between China and Latin America since 19th century. He was research fellow at the ICI-Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry (2014 – 2016) and at the DFG Research Training Group minor cosmopolitanisms at Potsdam University(2016-2020). He was twice the recipient of the EU Erasmus Mundus MA and PhD scholarships. All his writings and lectures could be read here: www.xiangzairong.com

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke Kunshan University · 2024 - Present DKU Faculty

Recent Publications


Ceremony: Burial of an Undead World

Book · December 2022 Artists and writers explore Sylvia Wynter's postcolonial dismantling of origin myths and cosmologies According to the influential Jamaican writer and cultural theorist Sylvia Wynter, "we humans cannot pre-exist our origin myths any more ... ... Cite

Where are Shanghai’s Homeless? Or The Gentrification of the Visual

Chapter · November 3, 2021 Through scholarly essays, interviews, analyses of architectural case studies, and research on the historical and current situation in Los Angeles, Moscow, Mumbai, New York, São Paulo, San Francisco, Shanghai, and Tokyo, this book unfolds ... ... Cite

Memoria (genesis and creation of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's 2021 film Memoria)

Book · September 2021 A chronicle of the genesis and creation of Memoria, the new film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. After visiting Colombia in 2017, Apichatpong chose the country as the location for his first feature shot outside of his native Thailand. In the following two ... Link to item Cite
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Education, Training & Certifications


University of Tubingen (Germany) · 2013 Ph.D.