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Bio

Nathaniel is an Associate Professor of Modern Chinese literature and cultural studies. His research interests include Chinese science fiction, transnational Chinese cinemas, and popular culture.

Projects

Nathaniel has had articles on the history of Chinese science fiction appear in Osiris, the Chinese Literature and Thought Today, the Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures, the journal Science Fiction Studies, and Simultaneous Worlds: Global Science Fiction Cinema (University of Minnesota Press, 2016). He has also published

Responsibilities

Director, Chinese Language Program and Asian Language, Chinese track major adviser, NCSU Foreign World Languages and Cultures, 2011-Present

World Literature Committee, NCSU, 2012-present

Asian Studies Committee, NCSU, 2011-present

WLC Committe on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, 2023-Present

Modern Languages Association, Forum Executive Committee Member 2023-2027 (Secretary, 2024)

Office Hours

• Mon, Wed: 12:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. Or by Appointment

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

 Work in Progress 

• Igor Nemirovski (lead translator). Russian translation of Celestial Empire. Brookline, MA: Academic Studies Press (expected Fall 2024). 
• Wang, Dingding (translator). Chinese translation of Celestial Empire. Jiangsu: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House (awaiting cover blurbs in Chinese).
• “Borrowed Bodies and Corporate Bodies in the Fiction of Chi Ta-Wei”. Posthuman Fabulations, ed. Carlos Rojas and Song Mingwei. (Press TBD) 

• Isaacson, Li, and Song, eds. Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories.  Palgrave (forthcoming Fall 2024)
• “Introduction.” Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories, Isaacson, Li and Song, eds. London: Palgrave Press (forthcoming Fall 2024)
• (Translator and editor) Jia Liyuan. “Intelligent Human Machines.” Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories, Isaacson, Li, and Song, eds. Palgrave (forthcoming Fall 2024)
• (Translator and editor) Li Guangyi. “The King of Electricity from the East: Science, Technology, and the Vision of World Order in Late Qing China” Chinese Science Fiction: Concepts, Forms, and Histories,  Isaacson, Li, and Song, eds. Palgrave (forthcoming Fall 2024)

 Books  

• Celestial Empire: the Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017. 

 Books Edited

• （See forthcoming) 

Book Chapters

• “Liu Cixin (2000) and Frant Gwo (2019), The Wandering Earth / De-Imperializing Empire.” Uneven Futures: Lessons for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction, Ed. Canavan, Yoshinaga et. al. MIT Press. 153-162.
• “The Automation of Affect” Robots and the Domestic Sphere in Sinophone Cinema.” The Palgrave Handbook of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and Science Ed. The Triangle Collective. Palgrave MacMillan, 2021. 621-636. (originally published as Qinggan de waibao)
• “Blurred Visions of Nation and State in Tong Enzheng’s Death Ray on a Coral Island.” Simultaneous Worlds: Global Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Jennifer Feely and Sarah A. Wells.  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. 272-288.

Journal Articles/ Web Modules

• (Web Module) “Trains in Late Qing Print Culture.” Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History, ed. David Ambaras and Kate McDonald. Nov. 2021. 
•  “‘Subaltern’ No More: of What Does Chinese Science Fiction Speak?” Comparative Literature and World Literature 6.1 Special Issue on Chinese Fiction of Science and Technology (Fall 2021): 1-4.
• “Trains, Technology and National Affect in Socialist-Realist Cinema 1949-1965. Comparative Literature and World Literature 6.1 Special Issue on Chinese Fiction of Science and Technology (Fall 2021): 63-81. 
• “Locating Kexue Xiangsheng (Science Crosstalk) in Relation to the Selective Tradition of Chinese Science Fiction.” Osiris 34.1 (Spring 2019): 139-157. 
• “Qinggan de waibao” (The Outsourcing of Affect), trans. Wang Chen. Wenxue,   (Spring/Summer 2017): 110-126.
• “Science as Institutional Formation in The New Era and Journey to Utopia.” Le Monde Chinois: nouvelle Asie 51-52, (Mar. – Apr. 2017): 28-37.

 Book Reviews

• Huters, Theodore. Taking China to the World: the Cultural Production of Modernity. NY: Cambria Press, 2023). https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2023/03/09/taking-china-to-the-world-review/#more-45131
• Ma Shaoling. The Stone and the Wireless: Mediating China, 1861-1906. Durham, NC and London: Duke U. Press, 2021. Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews vol. 144 (December 2022): 339-343. 
• Mark Bould. The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture (London and New York: Verso Press, 2021). Science Fiction Studies, 49.3 (2022): 555-558. 
• Ken Liu (Translator). Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation (Tor Books, 2019). Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/dispatches-from-the-future-of-a-new-china/

 Other Articles

• “Sino-American SF: Trans-national Participatory Culture and Translation.” SFRA Review V. 51.2 (Spring 2021): 62-70.
• “Han Song.” Chinese Literature Today V. 7, No. 1 (2018): 4-5. 
•  Author profile of Chen Ran.  In: Dictionary of Literary Biography vol. 370: Chinese Fiction Writers: 1950-200. Detroit: Gale Cengage, 2013.  29-35. 

TRANSLATION 

    Academic Translation 

• (Co-translator with Zhou Shu). ”An Analysis of the Concept of ‘Science Fiction in the Late Qing Dynasty.” Comparative Literature and World Literature 7.1 Spring 2022): 1-19.
• (Translator and Editor) “China Turns Outward: on the Literary Significance of Liu Cixin’s Science Fiction” (Zhongguo zhuanxiang wazai: Lun Liu Cixin kexue shi yiyi). Science Fiction Studies Vol. 46, no. 1 (March, 2019): 1-20.
• (Translator and Editor) “Soul-stealing Sand’: War and Time in Xin jiyuan [The New Era] (Xin jiyuan yu ‘zhuihun sha’ – Xin jiyuan zhong de shijian yu zhanzheng) “Science Fiction Studies. Vol. 46, no. 1 (March, 2018): 1-23.
• Xia Jia. “Evolution or Samsara? Spatio-temporal Myth in Han Song’s Science Fiction” (Jinhua yihuo lunhui: Han Song kehuan zhong de shikong misi). Chinese Literature Today. Vol. 7, no. 1, 2018: 23-27.
• Li Guangyi. Eerie Parables and Prophecies – An Analysis of Han Song’s Science Fiction (Guiyi de yuyan – Han Song kehuan xiaoshuo Pingxi). Chinese Literature Today. Vol. 7, no. 1, 2018: 28-32.

  Literary Translation

• (Translator and editor) Han Song. “Sars Survivors Association.” Chinese Literature and Thought Today 53, 1-2 (2022): 62-72. 
• (Translator) Various short stories and novellas in A Primer to Han Song. Los Angeles: Dark Moon Books, 2020. 9-60; 81-145.
• Han Song. “The Great Wall,” (Chang cheng) “Earth is Flat” (Diqiu shi ping de) and “The Fundamental Nature of the Universe” (Yuzhou de benxing). Chinese Literature Today. Vol. 7, no. 1, 2018: 6-19. 
• Subtitles Death Ray on a Coral Island, screened at MOMA, NYC August, 2017.
• Hao Jingfang, “Invisible Planets” (Kan bujian de xingqiu). The Sound of Salt Forming: Short Fiction From China’s post-1980 Generation, ed. Geng Song. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2016. 239-254.  

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

• Invited Round Table Panelist. The Image of China Through the Science Fiction Genre. Ca’Foscari University of Venice, March 2024.
• Invited Speaker.  The Cultural Logistics of Chinese and Sinophone SF, “Repressed Modernities and Transnational Co-productions of Kamen Rider in Hong Kong and Taiwan.” University of Fribourg, March, 2024.
• Panelist and Presider. Remixing Traditions: Neo-Baroque World-Building in Global Chinese Speculative Genres, “Repressed Modernities and Transnational Co-productions of Kamen Rider in Hong Kong and Taiwan.” MLA Jan, 2024.
• Guest Speaker. “Chinese Science Fiction, 1949-1976.” UNC Chapel Hill, March 2023.  
• Presider. “Digital Renderings of Chinese Literature, Cinema, and Television.” MLA. January, 2023.
• “The New in the Late Qing: Chinese Science Fiction at the Turn of the Twentieth Century.” Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. November, 2022. 
• Panel Chair and Presenter. “Developmental Aesthetics: Representing Railways and Extraction in Modern China.” March, 2022.
• Invited Speaker. “Trains in Late Qing Print Culture.” Duke University Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Symposium. October, 2021. 
• Panelist. “Posthuman Fabulations Seminar Series”. Paper Title: Borrowed Bodies and Corporate Bodies in the Fiction of Chi Ta-Wei.” Duke University. October, 2021.
• Invited Speaker. “On Not Dreaming and Other Techniques of the Body: Trains, Technology and Nation in Socialist-Realist Cinema 1949-1965.” Asian Studies Seminar Series. University of Cambridge. Jan., 2021.
• Invited Speaker. “Not Dreaming and Other Techniques of the Body: Trains, Technology and Nation in Socialist Cinema.” CEAS Humanities Colloquium, U Penn Center for East Asian Studies. Dec. 2020.
• Panelist. “On Not Dreaming and Other Techniques of the Body: Trains, Technology and Nation in Socialist-Realist Cinema 1949-1965.” Round Table Seminar on Chinese Science Fiction. University of Edinburgh, Oct. 2020. 
• Keynote Speaker. “The Aesthetics of Development in Late Qing Visual Culture: contextualizing contemporary science-fiction” Leeds University Symposium on Genre Fiction in Contemporary China and its Reception in the West. October, 2019.
• Keynote Speaker. “Chinese Science Fiction and Adversarial Perceptions of the West.” Australian Defence College Profession of Arms Seminar: Science Fiction as a Lens into Future War. October, 2019. 
• Invited Speaker. “Trains and Steam Engines in Late Qing Print Culture.” John’s Hopkins University Colloquium on the History of Science and Technology. September, 2019.
• Invited Panelist. Workshop on “Translating Science Fiction, Translation in Science Fiction: between China and the USA.” Chinese University of Hong Kong. June 1-2, 2018. 
• Invited Panelist. Workshop on “Science Fiction and Its Variations in the Sinophone World.” Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. May 29-31, 2018. 

Funded Research

NCSU Faculty Research Reboot, Summer 2024.

NCSU-Sponsored National Humanities Center Summer Fellow, Summer 2018.

CHASS Research and Exchange Programs Development Ambassador to Universities in China. North Carolina State University. Summer, 2013.

Area(s) of Expertise

Academic and research interests include Late Qing through contemporary Chinese literature and cultural studies, especially science fiction, cinema and the history of science and technology.