# https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com


## Posts

- [Emerging Voices with Jisoo Lee](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/emerging-voices-with-jisoo-lee/): For our latest Emerging Voices feature, we are thrilled to hear from Jisoo Lee at the University of Michigan about her research on pigeons in late imperial and Republican China! Jisoo Lee is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of History at the University of Michigan. She studies the history of pigeons in East Asia, focusing on interspecies bonds and communication, scientific and cultural ways of knowing animals, and questions of animal ethics. She holds an M.A. in Cultural Studies from Shanghai University. Hi Jisoo! To start, what first inspired you to include animals in your research? Adopting my dog, […]
- [Field Report with Humains et Non-humains](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/field-report-with-humains-et-non-humains/): We are delighted to hear from Joachim Boittout about a recent workshop held at the École normale supérieure de Lyon this October. The “Humains et non-humains (Chine, Corée, Japon et Vietnam)” International Workshop took place at the École normale supérieure de Lyon, France on 17-18 October 2025. It was organised by the Association Française d’études Chinoises, the Association Française pour l’étude de la Corée, the Société Française d’études Japonaises, and the Association Française pour la recherche sur l’Asie du Sud-est, as well as the Institut d’Asie Orientale. It was supported by a variety of research centres, including the CRCAO, IFRAE, […]
- [Talking Animals with Meir Shahar](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/talking-animals-with-meir-shahar/): In this Talking Animals post, we interview Meir Shahar about his recent work on Chinese popular religion and the worship of Ox and Horse King cults across late imperial times. Meir Shahar is the Shoul N. Eisenberg Chair for East Asian Affairs at Tel Aviv University.  His research interests cover Chinese religion and literature, Chinese martial-arts history, Chinese animal studies, and cultural exchanges between ancient India and China. Meir Shahar is the author of multiple books, including most recently Kings of Oxen and Horses: Draft Animals, Buddhism, and Chinese Rural Religion. He is also the co-editor of numerous volumes, including Animals […]
- [Field Report with Animals in Co-Becoming](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/field-report-animals-in-co-becoming/): We are delighted to hear from Severina Balabanova about the recent workshop held at National Sun Yat-sen University this September. The “Animals in Co-Becoming” International Workshop took place at National Sun Yat-sen University in Gaoxiong, Taiwan. It was supported by The Center for Transcultural Co-Becoming and Global Sinology, Department of Philosophy and The College of Liberal Arts, and was organised by Héctor Gastano and Severina Balabanova. The aim of the workshop was to stimulate reflection on animal conditions in the context of Taiwan and East Asia from a transdisciplinary perspective and guided by certain ethical principles. Starting from the humanities, […]
- [Emerging Voices with Fang Wu](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/emerging-voices-with-fang-wu/): For our latest Emerging Voices feature, we are thrilled to hear from Fang Wu at the University of Chicago about her research on horses in early China! Fang Wu is a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation explores the roles of horses during the Qin and Han periods using a range of sources, including administrative records, medical manuscripts, funerary art, literary texts, and archaeological evidence. She examines how horses functioned in daily life and what they meant to people in early China, challenging the idea that animals were merely peripheral to human-centred history. Her research seeks to […]
- [Same and/or Other 2025: A Report](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/same-and-or-other-report/): Same and/or Other? Animals in East Asian History 8 – 10 May 2025, Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies, University of Münster From 8 – 10 May, the Chinese Animal Studies Network hosted its inaugural workshop under the title “Same and/or Other: Animals in East Asian History” in co-operation with the Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies at the University of Münster. Twenty-one participants from all over the world presented their research on animals in-person and a further four online presentations were given on 22 May. Not only does this show that CASN is a truly global network, […]
- [Talking Animals with Olivia Milburn](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/talking-animals-with-olivia-milburn/): In this Talking Animals post, we interview Olivia Milburn about her recent work on Chinese insect literature, including the fascinating misgendering of queen bees and how painful mosquito stings have inspired her research. Olivia Milburn is currently Professor at the School of Chinese, Hong Kong University and was formerly employed at the Department of Chinese, Seoul National University. She received her M.A. from Cambridge and Ph.D. from SOAS. Her research focuses mainly on the history and culture of the ancient kingdoms of Wu and Yue, and the position of minorities and marginalized groups in early and medieval China. Her work […]
- [Emerging Voices with Rachel McVeigh](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/emerging-voices-with-rachel-mcveigh/): For our latest Emerging Voices feature, we are thrilled to hear from Rachel McVeigh at Harvard University about her research on medieval crane-keeping, poetry, and Chinese canine film-stars! Rachel McVeigh is a doctoral student at Harvard University working on the interplay between individual expression and generic convention in poetry, as well as the conceptual tools used to understand and evaluate these interactions. She completed her B.A. in Chinese at Oxford University and her Master’s in pre-modern Chinese literature from Peking University, where she wrote her thesis on “Form and Change in the Elegiac Poetry of Early Medieval China”. Hi Rachel! […]
- [Talking Animals with Jongsik Christian Yi](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/talking-animals-with-jongsik-christian-yi/): In this Talking Animals post, we interview Jongsik Christian Yi about his work on living with, caring for, and relying on animals in Chinese communes. Jongsik Christian Yi is an Assistant Professor of the History of Science at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), South Korea. Focusing on modern China and Vietnam, he works on how science, technology, and medicine mediate human interactions with nonhuman entities in the environments that we share. He is currently completing his first monograph, More-Than People’s Communes: Veterinary Workers and Nonhuman Animals in Mao-Era China, which is under contract with the University of Chicago […]
- [Emerging Voices with Shasha Cai](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/emerging-voices-with-shasha-cai/): In our first Emerging Voices feature, we are thrilled to hear from Shasha Cai at Leeds University about her doctoral research as she finishes writing up her thesis! Shasha Cai is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of English, University of Leeds. She is mostly interested in Animal Studies in the context of Chinese literature. Currently, Shasha is working on her Ph.D. project, which investigates representations of human-animal interactions in Chinese Ming and Qing literary works. She is also interested in exploring animals through the perspectives of energy humanities and critical plant studies. Hi Shasha! Thank you for being our […]
- [Talking Animals with Leslie Wallace](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/talking-animals-with-leslie-wallace/): In this Talking Animals post, we interview Leslie Wallace about her work on Chinese falconry and on the global trade in parrots in the middle ages! Leslie V. Wallace is a Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at Coastal Carolina University. Her current research interests include depictions of animal-human interactions and constructions of gender and the hunt. She has published widely on the topic of falconry (see more details at the end of this post) and is currently working on a monograph on Chinese visual representations of falconry. Hi Leslie! Thank you for joining us on Talking Animals. To […]
- [Field Report with Histories on Wings](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/field-report-with-histories-on-wings/): We are delighted to hear from the “Histories on Wings: Exploring Human-Bird Interactions and Their Cultural Significance in Asian History” project team at Sapienza University, Rome. They recently hosted their first international workshop exploring the topic of birds in Asian history on 28 October 2024. This workshop opened with a special lecture by Professor Roel Sterckx FBA, Joseph Needham Professor of Chinese History, Science and Civilization at the University of Cambridge. Paolo De Troia – PI of the project – and the project’s members then shared their avian research. Presentations covered topics as varied as intelligent birds, falconry, avian deities, and […]
- [Talking Animals with Renée Krusche](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/talking-animals-with-renee-krusche/): In this Talking Animals post, we interview our very own co-founder Renée Krusche about her work on veterinary medicine in twentieth-century China including equine acupuncture, opium, and hamsters. Renée Krusche is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in Sinology at Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research interests include the history of science and medicine, gender in Chinese and Asian history, and human-animal relationships. More recently, she has been working on the history of veterinary medicine in imperial and twentieth-century China. Hi Renée! Thank you for joining us on Talking Animals. To start, what first inspired you to include animals in your research? I […]
- [CASN Workshop 2025 in Münster!](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/casn-workshop-2025-in-munster/): We are delighted to announce the Call for Papers for our upcoming workshop to be held in conjunction with the Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies, University of Münster on 8 – 10 May 2025! Same and/or Other? Animals in East Asian History 8 – 10 May 2025, Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies, University of Münster Since the 1980s, research on animals has slowly gained traction. As Sandra Swart already noted in 2007, “animals are roving the groves of Academe.” A number of studies on the ways humans understand animals and how animals actively shape human-animal relations […]
- [Talking Animals with Keith Knapp](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/talking-animals-with-keith-knapp/): In our first Talking Animals post, we interview Keith Knapp about his research on moral animals in early medieval China. His work has covered the role of the animal world in Confucian argument, animals as moral exemplars in filial narratives, and most recently the role of birds and bears in imagining life and death in Jiangnan. Keith Knapp is Professor of East Asian History at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. His research focuses on the cultural and social history of early medieval China (220-589). He is the author of Selfless Offspring: Filial Children and Social Order in Medieval China and […]
- [Announcing the Chinese Animal Studies Network!](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/welcome-to-the-chinese-animal-studies-network/): Welcome to the Chinese Animal Studies Network website! We are very excited to launch this academic network which aims to bring together scholars interested in animal studies in a Chinese context. The study of animals present and past is no longer a fringe concern. Journals like Anthrozoös, Society & Animals, Humanimalia, and the recently-announced Animal History among others highlight just how much the study of animals has grown in past decades. Seminal books, handbooks, and collected volumes on all things animal are published ever more frequently. Many presses even have dedicated animal and environmental book series. Just as in life, […]

## Pages

- [Same and/or Other Workshop 2025](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/same-and-or-other-2025/): ‘Same and/or Other? Animals in East Asian History’, an in-person workshop in 2025 hosted at the University of Münster, was CASN’s first in-person event. This workshop posed the overarching question of how humans and animals have been understood as Same and/or Other in a variety of contexts. Were these two binary categories, or were these boundaries more porous than we imagine? The programme also included visits to the Allwetterzoo in Münster and the Westphalian Horse Museum, as well as an online panel.
- [CASN Bookshelf](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/casn-bookshelf/): Here, we highlight the books we think are vital resources for Chinese animal studies. This list is updated regularly and uses keywords to help when searching. Have a book to recommend? Please email us here! Picturing Animals and Plants in Early Modern China and Japan edited by Fan Lin and Doreen Mueller (Routledge, 2025) The collected volume Picturing Animals and Plants reveals how images supported, even supplanted, text in knowledge production. Chapters focus on the accurate representation of animal bodies in illustrations, the differing pictorial programmes of flyers, paintings, and portraits, and the spectacle of viewing animal exhibits and displays in urban […]
- [Mailing-List](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/mailing-list/)
- [Contact Us](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/contact-us/)
- [Transgressive Beasts Workshop 2022](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/transgressive-beasts-2022/): ‘Transgressive Beasts: Animals Challenging Boundaries in Chinese History’, an online workshop in 2022 jointly organised by the University of Cambridge and Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nürnberg, brought together scholars from around the world to discuss the liminality of animality. We invited participants to discuss transgressions of boundaries in dynastic and contemporary China. The talks, as noted below, explored topics as varied as animals in dreams, shape-shifting canines, insects in art, tattooed animals, and human/veterinary medicine.
- [Features](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/updates/)
- [About Us](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/): The Chinese Animal Studies Network aims to unite and connect scholars interested in studying animals across the chronological and geographic breadth of China. Founded in 2024 by Kelsey Granger, Renée Krusche, and Anne Schmiedl after a meeting in Erlangen spent discussing all things animal, CASN aims to encourage scholars to think with, through, and as animals in their research and to introduce Chinese examples into the ongoing animal turn. CASN will provide a forum for emerging and established scholars from around the world to contribute to our knowledge of animal histories, interactions, and agencies in a Chinese context. We look […]
- [Events](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/past-events/)
- [Committee](https://chineseanimalstudiesnetwork.com/casn-committee/): Kelsey Granger (Co-Founder) is a sinologist and historian of dynastic China and the wider Silk Roads, specialising in material culture, gender, and animal history. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 2022 with a thesis focusing on lapdog-keeping among elite women in seventh–tenth century China. She was then a Humboldt Research Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich where she worked with excavated documents from Xuanquan to access the lives of postal horses on the fringes of China’s Han empire. In 2024/25, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Renée Krusche (Co-Founder) is a Research […]


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