Ya Zuo 左娅's Avatar

Ya Zuo 左娅

@zuoya

Historian, middle and late imperial China, cultural history, history of emotions, Associate Professor at UC Santa Barbara

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12.11.2024
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Latest posts by Ya Zuo 左娅 @zuoya

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If you are attending the AAS in Vancouver, I hope you'll also consider joining this wonderful conference on East Eurasia.

03.03.2026 08:18 👍 4 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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Took my grad seminar to the UCLA rare book collection. I had requested every Tang and Song item available and seeing them all was deeply satisfying. We had on the table one Tang Dunhuang scroll, three Song Buddhist sutras, one Yuan sutra, along with some Ming and Qing books. Wonderful collection

27.02.2026 21:44 👍 12 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Laying my hands on a beautiful Song sutra—the thrill of it!

27.02.2026 21:19 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The UCSB Blum Center on Poverty, Inequality, & Democracy is accepting proposals for two funding opportunities: the Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative and the Dr. U.S. Awasthi Initiative in Cooperative Economics.

Learn more at blumcenter.ucsb.edu/research Apply by February 28th, 2026.

23.02.2026 23:09 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Engaging Every Student with the Dialectical Notebook - Inquiry Project One challenge I encounter with discussion-based learning is that each class inevitably has a handful (or more) of students who are less comfortable contributing verbally. My goal in supporting these s...

One challenge I find with discussion-based learning is each class inevitably has a handful of students who are less comfortable contributing verbally. The dialectical notebook, (aka, the "silent discussion”) is one way to guide them toward productive engagement.

inquiryproject.org/2026/02/17/d...

18.02.2026 02:28 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Always a happy day when the latest journal arrives from across the pond @ssycds.bsky.social Lots of interesting stuff inside, including a special section on the human senses!! #histbookchat #sinology #China #SongDynasty

07.01.2026 16:13 👍 11 🔁 5 💬 0 📌 0
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At the AAS in Vancouver, We also proudly sponsor two panels. Please come support our wonderful colleagues!

16.02.2026 19:53 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Come join us at the AAS in Vancouver! Come early, enjoy some dim sum, and catch up with everyone!

16.02.2026 19:42 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Right up my alley and wish I could be there. Also, the speaker is my college classmate 😀

07.02.2026 08:11 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

*a healthy new year 😀

07.01.2026 17:08 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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My new piece on the history of the chickpea in premodern China just came out. Wishing you a health near year full of good food! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

07.01.2026 16:47 👍 7 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
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‘Insider and Outsider’ | Josephine Quinn How did Saint Augustine’s African origins and his life among Christians there shape his theology?

St. Augustine (yes, that one), the African. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

04.11.2025 01:40 👍 17 🔁 7 💬 1 📌 2
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My chapter “Knowledge and Knowing in Neo-Confucianism” is out in the Routledge Companion to Chinese Philosophy edited by Brook Ziporyn and Stephen Walker. It was a pleasure working with philosophers! www.zuoya.org/_files/ugd/6...

27.10.2025 21:05 👍 12 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Congratulations to those whose panels got accepted by the AAS in 2026! If your panel or any of its speakers engage with the 10th-14th century in China, please consider applying for the Society's sponsorship. We look forward to receiving your proposals!

11.10.2025 07:59 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

I also assigned his writings whenever I taught Classical Chinese thought. Student interest in him remained strong, even among those younger students who had never met him either.

10.10.2025 20:21 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Bowdoin president's message one Kidder Smith's passing. He was my predecessor as the China historian at Bowdoin. I never met him, but I’ve heard so much about him as a campus legend.

10.10.2025 20:20 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
With lovely Rutgers colleagues

With lovely Rutgers colleagues

Wrapped up my talks at Princeton and Rutgers. Had a great time catching up with old friends and teachers, and meeting new ones too. Took NJ Transit to and from the airport and landed on the old cars. They look exactly the same as 20 years ago! Felt like I was zapped right back into a time capsule…

03.10.2025 13:33 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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I'm excited to return to New Jersey next week to give two talks respectively at Princeton and Rutgers. I'll be speaking about my recent work on Zhu Xi and his theory of emotions. I hadn't excepted a classical topic to spark so much joy of discovery, and I look forward to sharing that.

24.09.2025 22:49 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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The Fourth Middle-Period China Humanities conference in Hong Kong, summer 2026. Hope to see many of you there!

11.09.2025 22:01 👍 7 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 0

Oxford Studies in Medieval History is now Oxford Studies in the New Medieval History. Glad to be part of the opening up of this great series to global approaches. We are looking forward to receiving book manuscripts in global #medieval history.
More info in the flyer:
fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/...

29.07.2025 15:14 👍 17 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 0
Wailing Barbarians and Bloody Tears: Affect and Self-other Imagination in Medieval Eastern Eurasia You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.

Just in case anyone else finds the idea of blood-stained tears oddly appealing, here's a piece I wrote on the subject www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

23.07.2025 09:54 👍 3 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Echoes of Great Brightness: The Ming Dynasty and Beyond. An International Conference in Honour of Craig Clunas.

'Echoes of Great Brightness: The Ming Dynasty and Beyond' In Oxford, 16-17 September. Booking now open. I'm honoured (my goodness, I really am, so grateful to this amazing roster of colleagues)
web.cvent.com/event/a4ff13...

03.07.2025 13:38 👍 24 🔁 11 💬 0 📌 0
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Xuelei Huang. Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell. Xuelei Huang’s Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell is a cultural history of smell in modern China. It delineates an “olfactory revolution” that link

My review of Xuelei Huang's Scents of China: A Modern History of Smell is out in the American Historical Review. This is the first monograph ever written on the history of olfaction in China studies. A pleasant read! academic.oup.com/ahr/article-...

12.06.2025 20:39 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

谢谢🙏

19.05.2025 19:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
左娅︱悼陈昊_上海书评_澎湃新闻-The Paper 陈昊的突然离世,对我来说是一场时间彻底崩塌的事件。我们是在北大本科念书时结识的朋友,迄今已经相识二十余年。这二十年间,我们分别在世界的两头读完博士、入职高校、写

My friend Chen Hao passed away a month ago. He was a historian of medicine and middle-period Chinese history. He would have turned 42 this July. I wrote this obituary for him. Though I’ve written it, I still don’t have the words for such grief. www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_f...

19.05.2025 08:41 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Thank you!

17.04.2025 03:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thank you. The brewery has given their beer a variety of sexy names, but unfortunately Male Tears isn't one of them!

15.04.2025 06:05 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Glass in hand, but don’t be fooled—it’s just water. 💧

14.04.2025 05:30 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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I gave a talk on male tears in premodern China as part of the Profs at the Pub series, held at the Third Window Brewery in Santa Barbara. First time for me to speak among beer barrels!

14.04.2025 05:21 👍 34 🔁 2 💬 2 📌 2
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Many thanks to everyone who came to the SSYCDS annual meeting at AAS Columbus! We’re so grateful for your support and excitement!

18.03.2025 00:35 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1