Master's Supervisor
Name: Yunfei Du
Administrative Position: Lecturer
Name (Pinyin): Du Yunfei
Sex: Male
School/Department: School of Humanities
Education Level: With Certificate of Graduation for Doctorate Study
Date of Employment: 2025-12-18
Degree: Doctoral Degree in Philosophy
Alma Mater: Cornell University
Status: Employed
Discipline: Chinese Language and Literature
Enrollment Disciplines: Chinese Language and Literature

Yunfei Du is now a lecturer in comparative literature at the School of Humanities at Central South University, China. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University in 2025. Prior to his doctoral studies, he obtained an M.A. in Literary Theory from Beijing Normal University and a B.A. in Chinese Linguistics and Literature from Capital Normal University in the People’s Republic of China. His fields of interest include contemporary Chinese literature and culture, critical theory, and ecocriticism. He has published scholarly articles including:
DU, Yunfei. 2026. “Hauntological Ecologies and Temporalities of Post-Socialism: Disco Elysium between Estonia and China.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. doi:10.1057/s41599-026-09233-1. [SSCI, A&HCI]
DU, Yunfei. 2026. “Labor Theatre against neoliberalism: WE 2s (2019) and Migrant Worker Theatre in China.” Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance 31(2):206–223. [SSCI, A&HCI]
DU, Yunfei. 2025. “Chorography, Ecosophy, and Ecopoetics in Chen Nianxi’s Migrant Worker Poetry.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 37(1): 31-59. [SSCI, A&HCI]
DU, Yunfei* and Xiang He*. 2025. “Environmental Justice through Nostalgia and Solastalgia: Literary Representations of Ethnic Minority Children in Rural China.” International Research in Children’s Literature 18(1): 42-56. [A&HCI, *co-first authorship with equal contribution]
He is a translator of dozens of articles/books, including:
DU, Yunfei. “Empire, Twenty Years On 帝国出版二十周年回顾.” By Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. Marxism and Reality 马克思主义与现实. (02)2020:146-156.
DU, Yunfei, translator. 纪念沃勒斯坦:全球左翼的过去, 现在和未来 The Global Left: Past, Present, and Future. By Immanuel Wallerstein, The Paper 澎湃新闻, Sep 13 2019.
DU, Yunfei, translator. 帝国回旋镖效应 The Imperial Boomerang: How colonial methods of repression migrate back to the metropolis. By Connor Woodman, The Paper 澎湃新闻, Mar 24 2021.
DU, Yunfei, translator. 21世纪美国反种族主义运动史 Brown v. Ferguson: A chronicle of #BlackLivesMatter. By Endnotes, The Paper 澎湃新闻, Jul 24 2020.
He also wrote many articles on public media, including:
DU, Yunfei. “Darkness Tells the Dark to Be Silent: Blanchot’s Aminadab” or黑夜教黑夜以沈默:布朗肖亞米拿達. Hong Kong 01 Philosophy, https://www.hk01.com/%E5%93%B2%E5%AD%B8/98141/
DU, Yunfei. “How We Understand the Politics of Life Itself” or 如何理解生命本身的政治?. Hong Kong 01 Philosophy, https://www.hk01.com/%E5%93%B2%E5%AD%B8/107923/
DU, Yunfei. “Empire: A Communist Manifesto of the 21st Century” or《帝國》,21世紀重寫《共產黨宣言》的書?. Hong Kong 01 Philosophy, https://www.hk01.com/%E5%93%B2%E5%AD%B8/117605/
DU, Yunfei. “Rancière: Literature as Democracy” or 洪席耶:文學是最高的民主. Hong Kong 01 Philosophy, https://www.hk01.com/%E5%93%B2%E5%AD%B8/136154/

›Yunfei Du, Hauntological Ecologies and Temporalities of Post-Socialism: Disco Elysium between Estonia and China[J].Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2026
›Yunfei Du, From Imperial Gazetteer to Ecological Fiction: Difangzhi/Chorography and the Affordances of Forms[J].Comparative Literature Studies (forthcoming)
›Yunfei Du, Critical Resilience and Migrant Worker Theatre in China: The Story of Giving Birth[J].Contemporary Theatre Review (forthcoming) : forthcoming.
›Yunfei Du, Labor Theatre against neoliberalism: We 2s (2019) and Migrant Worker Theatre in China.[J].Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2025, 31 (2) : 206–223.
›Yunfei Du, Chorography, Ecosophy and Ecopoetics in Chen Nianxi’s Migrant Worker Poetry[J].Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, 2025, 37 (1) : 31–59.
›Xiang He, Yunfei Du.Environmental Justice through Nostalgia and Solastalgia: Literary Representations of Ethnic Minority Children in Rural China.[J].International Research in Children’s Literature, 2025, 18 (1) : 42–56.
›Yunfei Du, Literary Actions, Politics, and Ethics: Blanchot’s Non-Committed Literature.[J].Foreign Literature Review, 2024 (4) : 5–28.
›Yunfei Du, The Significance of Universal Basic Income[J].China Book Review, 2021 (7) : 19–32.

Contemporary Chinese Literature and Cultural Studies
Eco-literature, Ecocriticism, and Environmental Humanities

Major : Asian Studies
Doctoral degreeMajor : Asian Studies
Master's degreeMajor : Chinese Language and Literature
Master's degreeMajor : Chinese Language and Literature
Bachelor's Degree
Cornell University
› Department of Asian Studies
› 授课教师
› Taught classes:
ASIAN 2212 Introduction to China
ASIAN 2231 Introduction to China: Imagining China’s Past
ASIAN 2232 Introduction to China: Getting Rich in Modern China
CHIN 1109 Beginning Chinese for Heritage Students
CHIN 2209 Intermediate Chinese