Yuhang Li

Curriculum Vitae

Additional Titles
Faculty Director of the Nancy M. Bruce Center for Design and Material Culture, School of Human Ecology; Affiliate of the Religious Studies Program, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Center for East Asian Studies

Education
B.A. Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China
M.A. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Ph.D. University of Chicago

Research Interests
Yuhang Li’s research explores gender and material practice in late imperial China, with particular focus on devotional practices, mimesis, textile arts, efficacious paper media, and the intersections of opera, theater, religion, and visual culture. She is the author of the award-winning monograph Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China (Columbia University Press, 2020), which received both the 2021 Religion and the Arts Book Award from the American Academy of Religion and the 2024 Geiss-Hsu Book Prize for Best First Book in Ming Studies from the Society for Ming Studies. Additionally, she co-curated the exhibition Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture (Smart Museum, 2014) and co-edited its accompanying catalogue (University of Chicago Press). Her scholarly work includes numerous publications on Chinese material religion and gendered practices.

Publications
Single Authored Book:
Becoming Guanyin: Artistic Devotion of Buddhist Women in Late Imperial China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), American Academy of Religion’s 2021 Religion and the Arts Book Award Winner; Society for Ming Studies’ Inaugural 2024 Geiss-Hsu Book Prize for the Best First Book in Ming Studies.

Edited Projects:
Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture, co-edited with Judith Zeitlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

Nannü: Men, Women, and Gender in China: Special Issue on Rethinking Empress Dowager Cixi through the Production of Art. Co-editor with Harriet Zurndorfer. Vol. 14, issue 1, 2012.

Articles/Chapters:
“Zhiwei lingmei: yi qinggong dafachuan weili 纸为灵媒：以清宫大法船为例 [Paper as Efficacious Medium: the Practice of Dharma Boats at the Qing Court] ” in Wu Hung ed., Chinese Material Art, 5th vol, 中国材质艺术第五辑 (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2025, 151-212).

“Fragrant Orchid as Feminine Body: Ma Xianglan’s Orchid Painting and the Emergence of Courtesan Painters in Early Modern China,” in Suyoung Son, Ariel Fox and Paize Keulmans eds., The Sensorium of the Early Modern Chinese Text (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).

“Shrine Valance,” in Adam Yuet Chau ed., Chinese Religious Culture in 100 Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

“Engineering Religious Bliss at the Qing Court: Jile shijie in the Beihai Park,” in Wu Hung and Jeehee Hong eds., Materiality and Affect: Emotion in Chinese Art. (Chicago: Art Media Resources, 2026), 221-255.

“Xiugai xibu yu zhuanhuan minghua: chongxin sikao shanxi dali lishi jiazumu de shanshui tuxiang” 修改细部与转换冥画：重新思考陕西大荔李氏家族墓的山水图像 (Modifying Details into Spiritual Paintings: Rethinking the Visuality of Landscape Images from the Li Family Tombs in Shaanxi Dali during the Nineteenth Century). Wu Hung, Zhu Qingsheng and Zheng Yan eds., Gudai muzang meishu yanjiu (di liu ji) 古代墓葬美术研究第六辑 (The Sixth International Conference on Chinese Ancient Tomb Art) (Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, 2025), 319-355.

“Textiles-Introduction to Section,” in Jessica Harrison-Hall ed., China’s 1800s Material and Visual Culture. (British Museum Pubns Ltd, 2025) 202-204.

“Chinese Representations and Materializations of Guanyin,” in Seunghye Lee ed., Women and Buddhism in East Asian Art Exhibition Catalogue. (Seoul: Samsung Foundation of Culture, 2024) 354-367.

“Faxiu: Mingqing shiqi nuxing fojiaotu de fengxian meijie [发绣：明清时期女性佛教徒的奉献媒介Hair Embroidery: Women’s Devotional Medium in the Late Imperial China],” in Wu Hung ed., Chinese Material Art 2vol, Ritual and Devotion 中国材质艺术第二辑： 礼仪与奉献 (Shanghai: Shanghai shuhua chubanshe, 2024) 143-182.

“Wearing a Gendered Tree: A New Style of Chinese Garments at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” in Melia Belli Bose ed., Threads of Globalization: Fashion, Textiles, and Gender in Asia in the Long Twentieth Century (Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 2024), 25-46. [P]

“Li Lianying: Celebrated Palace Eunuch,” in Jessica Harrison-Hall and Julia Lovell eds., Creators of Modern China: 100 Lives from Empire to Republic 1796-1912. (London: Thames & Hudson, 2023), 39-41.

“Qingdai kesi zhenzhuta wen kuanxiu changpao [Narrating Pearl Pagoda on a Qing Dynasty Kesi Robe,” in Yu-chih Lai ed., Seeing 48 Objects & Their Worlds [物見：四十八位物件的閱讀者與他們所見的物質世界] (Taibei: Yuanzu wenhua chubanshe, 2022), 70-79.

“Classing the Classics: Investigating Artisanal Reproduction of Landscape Imagery in Nineteenth-Century Chinese Tombs.” Selva: A Journal of the History of Art 3 (2021):7–44.

“Burning Big Dharma Boats: Paper as Efficacious Medium,” in The Allure of Matter: Materiality Across Chinese Art, edited by Orianna Cacchione and Wei-Cheng Lin, 150–79 (Chicago: Center for the Art of East Asia and Smart Museum of Art, 2021).

“Mofang Guanyin faze: mingdai nüxing wangsheng de wuzhi meijie” 摹仿觀音髮簪: 明代女性往生的物質媒介(Mimicking Guanyin’s Hairpin: the Material Mediums for Women’s Transcendence), in Kanjian xingbie 看見性別(Seeing Gender), edited by Gao Yanyi (Dorothy Ko), Lai Yu-chi, and Ruan Yuan (Aida Yue Wong), 18–47 (Taipei: Shitou chubanshe, 2020).

“Producing Empress Dowager Cixi as Guanyin for Missionaries’ Eyes.” Orientations 46, no. 6 (November/December 2018):62–73.

“Narrating Morality on Textiles,” in Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture, edited by Judith Zeitlin and Yuhang Li, 74–87 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

“Sensory Devotions: Hair Embroidery and Gendered Corporeal Practice in Chinese Buddhism,” in Sensational Religion: Sensory Cultures in Material Practice, edited by Sally M. Promey, 355–75 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014).

“Rethinking Empress Dowager Cixi through the Production of Art,” co-authored with Harriet T. Zurndorfer, Nannü: Men, Women, and Gender in China 14, iss. 1 (2012):1–20.

“Oneself as a Female Deity: Representations of Cixi Posing as Guanyin.” Nannü: Men, Women, and Gender in China 14, iss. 1 (2012):75–118.

“Communicating with Guanyin through Hair: Hair Embroidery in Late Imperial China,” Journal of East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine 36 (2012):131–66

Teaching
AH103: Elegant Revenge: Chinese Arts and Drama
AH 203: Survey of Asian Art
AH 307: From Tomb to Temple: Ancient Chinese Art and Religion in Transition
AH308: The Tastes of Scholars and Emperors: Chinese Art in the Later Periods
AH 411: Topics in Chinese Art
– Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art
– Beijing: Staging Royalty in Late Imperial China
– Opera and Chinese Visual Culture
AH 576/876: Proseminar in Chinese Art
– Issues of Gender in Chinese Art
– Gender and Material Practice in the Cult of Guanyin
– Needle, Thread, Silk and Tapestry
– Rethinking Birthdays in Chinese Arts