Jon von Kowallis

Biography

Jon is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He began the study of Chinese language and culture for the BA at Columbia University, specializing in Chinese literature under CT Hsia); he then did advanced study at Taiwan University under Chen Guying and Wolf Baus), followed by the MA in Chinese literature as a Fellow of the East-West Center at the University of Hawaii (under Lo Chin-t’ang). Completed the PhD in Oriental Languages at the University of California, Berkeley in Chinese literature (late Qing and early Republic) under Cyril Birch, with subfields in intellectual history (Tu Wei-ming), folklore (Wolfram Eberhard); Chinese literature of the middle period (Samuel H-N Cheung); and historical phonology (Chang K’un) . He did advanced study of Chinese literature at Peking University as a Fellow of the Committee for Scholarly Communication with the People’s Republic of China, National Academy of Sciences (Washington, DC) under Sun Yushi and Qian Zhongshu. Published monographs and articles on Lu Xun’s (1881-1936) classical-style poetry and essays (with funding from the Australian Research Council); the question of modernity in classical-style poetry of the late Qing and early Republic; the influence in China of Takeuchi Yoshimi’s 1944 monograph *Ro Jin* (Lu Xun), which he co-translated from the Japanese; he recently studied Taiwan director Lai Sheng-chuan’s activities as an example of Taiwan “soft power” in mainland China as a Senior Fellow of the China-US Scholars Program, the Biden administration’s version of the Fulbright Research Fellowship for China, funded by the Carnegie Endowment and the Harvard-Yenching Institute.