Department: Comparative Literature Faculty Adviser: Benjamin Conisbee Baer Year of Study: G5 Undergraduate School: Renmin University of China Undergraduate Major: Chinese Literature + English
Hi! I'm Siwei, and I was born and raised in Chongqing, China. My pronoun is she/her. As an undergrad studying literature, I did several independent research projects, from how Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo grapples with issues of temporality and death, to irony and colonial modernity in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I then moved to the States and earned an MA in English at Georgetown University, where I developed an interest in postcolonial writing. My master's thesis looked at how contemporary African novels imagine the ocean, a subject bound up with the history of slavery, transoceanic cultural encounters, and environmental harm. Now at Princeton, I'm writing a dissertation that compares African and Chinese literature during the early Cold War. The places and periods I study have slightly shifted over the years, but my central research question remains the same. How does the way a work is written (e.g., its form, genre, and style) connect to the world it comes from? The historical conditions surrounding a work shape what kinds of writing become possible. In turn, writing can push back on and change that world. I employ primarily two methodologies: close reading (i.e., paying close attention to the thematic and stylistic choices of a text, understanding what a text says and how it says what it says), and archival research (i.e., digging into historical documents related to the text, its author, its time, etc). I try not to treat a literary text as a simple mirror of its time, but I also don't read it as if it existed in a vacuum. I'd be happy to chat about literary studies, research methods commonly used in humanities projects, undergraduate research opportunities, and anything about grad school. Outside of research, I enjoy music, movies, gym workouts, Pilates, and baking.
I have a very high spice tolerance (I'm from Chongqing, the hot pot capital of China, iykyk). To my frustration, I've yet to find a pepper in the States that's truly spicy enough for me. Recommendations welcome :)
My dissertation compares Chinese literature from the early socialist period with African leftist writing from around the same time. Many of these books are usually dismissed as "bad," "overly politicized" writing, nothing more than ideological propaganda. Some even copy government policy documents word for word. However, I read them differently as carefully crafted works with ingenious rhetorical decisions. I argue that socialist literature tries to train its readers' senses, teaching them new ways to look at, listen to, and feel the world around them. My project seeks to challenge an ingrained Cold War mindset that still shapes how we judge literature today. This mindset divides literary works into two camps: pure art versus art as political tools. My project also proposes a new way to compare African and Chinese literature. Most existing studies focus on direct connections between African and Chinese texts and writers, such as translation projects, cultural diplomacy, and international conferences where African and Chinese authors met in the name of Third World solidarity. These are of course important discussions, but I wanted to consider what we can learn when we read together two texts that are not empirically related yet share a certain kind of socialist ethos and aesthetic sensibility.
Interested in participating in Summer 2027 ReMatch+ program.
