Kang-i Sun Chang

Enriched the scholarly understanding of Chinese poetry in three ways: first, through the reconsideration of traditional genre distinctions in light of successive appropriations and reorientations of poetic forms. Second, through uncovering contributions of women, many of them little-known as individuals, to poetry and literary life generally. Third, through attention to the ongoing life of traditional Chinese poetic forms despite their replacement by international literary modernism. As historian, critic, anthologist and commentator on anthologies, demonstrates a subtle awareness of the workings of canonicity. As researcher and teacher, wrote several volumes of casual essays in Chinese about the American academic scene, and a memoir of her father's imprisonment on insubstantial political grounds in Taiwan. One of the first scholars from Taiwan to join mainland Chinese scholars in workshops and colloquia, a bridging activity in which she still participates.