Xin Yang

Xin Yang specializes in modern and contemporary Chinese literature, culture, and film, with a special focus on gender politics and Internet studies. She studies Chinese female writers and writing in a post-feminist environment, a global context marked by neo-liberalism and ever-increasing consumerism. She also researches the politics of digital technologies in post-socialist China and the impact of the Internet on literary writing.

Xin is currently working on the role fiction, poetry, and media culture play in the era divided by national, ideological, and racial conflicts. She writes on migrant workers’ writing, rural women’s video-making, and the social engagement of Chinese science fiction. Her most recent publications include journal articles on Chinese science fiction (2026),  Chinese migrant workers’ poetry (2024), and rural vlogger Li Ziqi (2022). 

Xin has also authored a number of journal essays and book chapters. The journals in which her articles have appeared include Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, China Information, Southeast Review of Asian Studies, Frontier of Literary Studies in China, Chinese Literature and Thought Today, and The Journal of Working-Class Studies, among others. 

Her book, Re-configuring Class, Gender, Ethnicity and Ethics in Chinese Internet Culture (co-authored with Haomin Gong, London & New York: Routledge, 2017) addresses how Chinese Internet culture has provided a means to intervene in the otherwise monolithic narratives of identity and community. Her monograph, From Beauty Fear to Beauty Fever: A Critical Study of Contemporary Chinese Female Writers, discusses women’s writings in post-socialist China.

Xin received her B.A. at Beijing Foreign Studies University and Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. Courses taught at Macalester include: China on Screen, Gender and Sexuality in China, Translating Chinese, From Earth to Space: the Future in Chinese Science Fiction, Revolution and Love in Chinese fiction and film, Cyber China, Goddesses and Ghosts in Chinese literature, and Chinese language at all levels.