Dr. Yun-Chu Tsai
Assistant Professor and Director of the Chinese Program
Chinese
Dr. Tiffany Yun-Chu Tsai is the Director of the Chinese Program and Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina.
Her research, Cannibalism as Pathology: China’s Modernity in Crisis, investigates the cultural logic of cannibalism and its evolution over the course of China’s modernization and globalization. It contributes a cultural history of cannibalism in modern China – as a literary trope and as a discourse that reflect a pathology of China’s modernity – to the field of modern Chinese literature and history. Dr. Tsai’s research examines the rhetoric of “enemy of the people/nation” behind the discourse of cannibalism and demonstrates that this discourse’s thematic evolution reflects China’s traumatic modern experiences. Cannibalism as Pathology uncovers China’s modernity and its dynamic relation with colonialism, nationalism, authoritarianism, and global capitalism.
Dr. Tsai has published “A ‘Consuming Identity’ in China’s Modernity: Contextualizing Cannibalism in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature,” “Cannibal Labyrinth: Narrative, Intertextuality, and Politics of Cannibalism in Mo Yan’s The Republic of Wine” and “Sinicizing Islam: Translating the Gulistan of Sa‘di in Modern China.” Her fourth journal article, “Cannibalistic Paradox in Yan Lianke’s The Day the Sun Died: The Pathology and Treatment of Modernity in Post-1989 Chinese Literature,” is currently in revision.
At The Citadel, Dr. Tsai teaches all levels of Chinese courses, has built and taught 9 distinct literature and culture courses, including “Wolf Warrior,” “Banned in China,” “Civic Values in China,” and more. Since Fall 2017, Dr. Tsai has advised the Chinese Club for 6 consecutive years and has led the Project Global Officer in Taiwan – a 7-week, 150-hour program that is intended to provide Chinese-language students (including those without Chinese study experience) with immersive exposure to the language. If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Tsai.
Degrees
Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Literatures (University of California, Irvine)
M.A. English (State University of New York)
B.A. English (National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan)