Dr. Yenna Wu’s area of specialization is Chinese literature, culture, and language. Her research covers various aspects of Ming-Qing fiction; Chinese women and literature, and Chinese women’s studies; Chinese labor camp studies, human rights issues and aesthetics of political prison literature; selected contemporary Chinese, Taiwan and Sinophone narratives and films; and Chinese language textbooks designed for non-heritage learners or for heritage speakers. She has published over 70 articles and book chapters as well as a number of books, translations, and reviews in both English and Chinese. Her numerous publications include The Chinese Virago: A Literary Theme (1995), The Lioness Roars: Shrew Stories from Late Imperial China (1995), Ameliorative Satire and the Seventeenth-Century Chinese Novel, Xingshi yinyuan zhuan—Marriage as Retribution, Awakening the World (1999), The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage (co-authored, 2004), Remolding and Resistance among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp: Disciplined and Published (co-edited, 2006), Me and China (co-authored, 2008), Mandarin Chinese the Easy Way with Audio CD (co-authored, 2008), Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature (co-edited, 2011), The Thought Remolding Campaign of the Chinese Communist Party-State (by Hu Ping; co-translated, 2012), and Li Ang’s Visionary Challenges to Gender, Sex, and Politics (edited, 2014).

Professor Wu’s interdisciplinary research on Chinese women and the representation of gender dynamics has broadened to include analyses of the differences between Western feminism and Chinese women’s studies in the framework of transnational feminism and globalization. She continues her research on literary portrayals of cannibalism, engaging postcolonial discourse on this topic. In addition, she examines Ming-Qing literary representations of the cultural practice of gegu liaoqin 割股療親as well as its connections with ethics and religion. Exploring the issues of psychological trauma and human rights through prison camp fiction and memoirs, she is interested in examining the intersections of politics and aesthetics in prison literature in an interliterary and intercultural context. Furthermore, Professor Wu studies selected contemporary Chinese, Taiwanese and Sinophone works, and has edited a volume of critical essays (in English) on Li Ang 李昂, a famous feminist writer from Taiwan. She continues to do research on Li Ang’s more recent publications and Li’s exploration of the intersection of food, sexuality, and politics. Professor Wu’s current projects include a co-edited volume on Sinophone literature as well as a monograph studying the narratives and films on the Jiabiangou labor camp.

Selected Recent Publications:

• Wu, Yenna. “A Venture into Taiwan’s Political Changes and Historical Memories Through Li Ang’s ‘Beef Noodle Soup’” in Chia-rong Wu and Ming-ju Fan, eds., Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: A Critical Reader (Singapore: Springer, 2023), 27-39. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-19-8380-1.
• Wu, Yenna, (2022) “Reverberations of Collective Traumatic Memories from a South Korean Movie to June Fourth and Jiabiangou”, ASIANetwork Exchange A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts 28(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.16995/ane.8153
• Wu, Yenna. 2021. “Advocating Empathy and Inclusiveness: Taiwan’s Movie Your Name Engraved Herein (2020).” American Journal of Chinese Studies 28.2 (October 2021): 73-96.
• Yenna Wu, “Cultural Trauma Construction of the Necropolitical Jiabiangou Laojiao Camp.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 27.1 (April 2020): 25-49.
• [Correction on p. 36:  change the figure “550,287” to “552,877”.]
• Wu, Yenna. “Reconsidering the Innovation and Ambiguity in Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor (Doupeng xianhua 豆棚閒話).” Ming Studies 2019:80, 48-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/0147037X.2019.1668183
• Wu, Yenna. “Recognizing and Resisting China’s Evolving Sharp Power.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 26.2 (October 2019): 129-53.
• Wu, Yenna. “In Defense of Bodily Self-sacrifice and Asceticism: The Making of a Virgin Saint in Xingshiyan型世言.” In Jesse Glass and Philip F. Williams, eds., Salutations; a Festschrift for Burton Watson. Tokyo: Ahadada/Ekleksographia, 2015. Pp. 78-103.
• Wu, Yenna.  “Female Literary Talent and Gender-related Trauma in Li Ang’s ‘No-sky Ghost.’” American Journal of Chinese Studies 22.1 (April 2015): 59-76.
• Wu, Yenna. “Li Ang’s Gendered Dissent in ‘The Devil in a Chastity Belt.’”  Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 8.2 (June 2014): 253-276.
• Wu, Yenna, ed. Li Ang’s Visionary Challenges to Gender, Sex, and Politics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2014. This is the first collection of critical essays in English on the Taiwanese feminist author Li Ang 李昂 (pseudonym of Shih Shu-tuan; Shi Shuduan 施淑端, 1952- ) and her works.
• Wu, Yenna. “Ming-Qing Fiction”. In Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies. Ed. Tim Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, 22 Apr. 2013.
• The Thought Remolding Campaign of the Chinese Communist Party-State. Original Chinese version人的馴化，躲避與反叛by Hu Ping胡平. Translated and edited by Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.
• Wu, Yenna. “China Through Yu Hua’s Prism.” American Journal of Chinese Studies 19.1 (April 2012): 55-62.

Books:

• Wu, Yenna, ed. Li Ang’s Visionary Challenges to Gender, Sex, and Politics. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2014.
• The Thought Remolding Campaign of the Chinese Communist Party-State.Original Chinese version人的馴化，躲避與反叛by Hu Ping胡平. Translated and edited by Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012.
• Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature. Ed. Yenna Wu and Simona Livescu. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2011.
• Mandarin Chinese the Easy Way with Audio CD, by Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu.  Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 2008.
• Wanli daqiang: Zhonggong laogai ying de kua xueke yanjiu萬里大牆: 中共勞改營的跨學科研究  [A Thousand Miles of Prison Walls: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Contemporary Chinese Labor Camp]. 魏綸, 吳燕娜著 [by Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu]. 吳燕娜譯, 魏綸助譯 [Translated by Yenna Wu with Philip F. Williams]. 台北: 黎明文化 [Taipei: Li Ming Cultural Publishing], 2007.
• Me and China我和中國.  Yenna Wu co-authored with Qian He and Ying Petersen. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, and New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2008. This is a Chinese language textbook specifically designed for Mandarin heritage speakers.
• Remolding and Resistance among Writers of the Chinese Prison Camp: Disciplined and Published. Ed. Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. London: Routledge, 2006.
• The Great Wall of Confinement: The Chinese Prison Camp Through Contemporary Fiction and Reportage. By Philip F. Williams and Yenna Wu. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
• Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, di’er ji 中國婦女與文學論集, 第二集 [Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature, Volume 2]. Edited by Yenna Wu吳燕娜 with Philip F. Williams魏綸. 台北縣板橋市: 稻鄉出版社  [Panchiao, Taipei  Hsien: Daw Shiang Publishing Co.], 2001.
• Ameliorative Satire and the Seventeenth-Century Chinese Novel, Xingshi yinyuan zhuan—Marriage as Retribution, Awakening the World. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1999.
• Chinese the Easy Way. By Philip F.C. Williams and Yenna Wu. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, 1999.
• Zhongguo funü yu wenxue lunji, diyi ji 中國婦女與文學論集, 第一集 [Critical Essays on Chinese Women and Literature,Volume One]. Edited by Yenna Wu 吳燕娜 with Philip F. Williams魏綸. 台北縣板橋市: 稻鄉出版社  [Panchiao, Taipei  Hsien: Daw Shiang Publishing Co.], 1999.
• The Lioness Roars: Shrew Stories from Late Imperial China. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. East Asia Series, 1995.  Second edition (with minor revision) in 2004.
• The Chinese Virago: A Literary Theme. Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, 1995.
• 克努特 · 哈姆孫 (Knut Hamsun).  E  餓 [Hunger] . 吳燕娜 翻譯 (translated by Yenna Wu).台北: 志文出版社 (Taipei: Chi-wen Publishing Co., 1982). A translation of Knut Hamsun’s novel Hunger from English into Chinese with a critical introduction, authorial chronology, and two prefaces by other authors.