Guoying Gong
Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 3:00–5:00 pm
Email: gg2711@columbia.edu
Educational Background
MA: Peking University / University of Colorado at Boulder
PhD: Columbia University
Classes Taught
Research Interests
Guoying Gong is a scholar of premodern Chinese literature whose research focuses on medieval Chinese poetry, classical exegesis, and literary thought and criticism. She is currently revising her dissertation into a book manuscript titled Writing Home and Empire from the Margins: Longing and Belonging in Du Fu’s (712–770) Poetry. This project investigates how poetry both reflected and shaped cultural transformation during the pivotal period following the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763), with a focus on Du Fu’s post-rebellion writings composed during his years in exile.
It argues that Du Fu’s literary experimentation was driven by a sustained negotiation of evolving notions of home and newly imagined visions of empire articulated from the margins. By exploring the intersections of poetry with material, infrastructural, and social realms—including geography, transportation, and the circulation of information—the study demonstrates how encounters with unfamiliar landscapes, compromised infrastructure, and disrupted communication on the empire’s peripheries not only shaped Du Fu’s poetic expression but also expanded the formal and conceptual possibilities of the poetic medium, allowing him to re-envision both home and empire.
