Allison Bernard

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Office Hours: M 10-12:00 PM and by appointment
Email: aeb2197@columbia.edu 

Educational Background

PhD: Columbia University
MA: Columbia University
BA: Middlebury College

Classes Taught

AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts
EAAS UN3119 Theater/Drama Traditions of China and Japan
EAAS UN3114: Chinese Theater and Drama

Research Interests

Allison Bernard is a scholar of Chinese literature and culture whose research focuses on Ming-Qing drama, print and theatrical cultures, and intersections between literature and history. She is working on a book manuscript that examines the uses of metatheatre in and around Kong Shangren’s historical drama, Taohua shan (The Peach Blossom Fan). This project reveals the significance of theatrical media and performance practices for framing the political and historical valences of 17th century dramas and demonstrates how The Peach Blossom Fan’s uses of metatheatre serve as an innovative form of historiography (including in its treatment of Ruan Dacheng: a blacklisted mid-17th century politician and playwright, who appears on stage in The Peach Blossom Fan as a dramatic character).

In addition to her work on theater and performance, Allison is interested in questions about how media shapes the reading and writing of early modern Chinese literature. Other in-progress projects include articles on early-mid Qing autobiographical playwrights Liao Yan and Xu Xi, concepts of visuality and portraiture in Kong Shangren’s “portrait-poetry,” and the emperor’s role type in early modern Chinese dramas.

Selected Publications

“‘Making History’: Metatheatre in The Peach Blossom Fan,” CHINOPERL (Journal of Chinese Oral & Performing Literature) 40, no. 2 (December 2021), 99-127.