Roy Chan

Assistant Professor of Chinese

Office: Washington Hall 215
Phone: (757) 221-5506
Email: [[rchan]]

Research Interests

Roy Chan's primary research interests are modern Chinese and Russian literatures. His dissertation (2009) focused primarily on the rhetoric of dreams and reality and its relation to issues of literature, modernity and revolutionary utopianism in modern Chinese fiction. Literary interests include the study of prose genres, realism, and narrative discourse. Theoretical concerns include Marxism, ideological fantasy, and the relationship between materiality and semiotics. His second project will focus on the role of political fantasy and transnational desire in literary and cultural exchanges between China and Russia. 

Background

Roy majored in Russian and Comparative Literature at the University of Washington (2002), where he received the school's President's Medal upon graduation. He received his Ph.D. (2009) from the University of California, Berkeley in Comparative Literature, specializing in both Chinese and Russian literatures. He offers courses in Chinese literature and culture, focusing on modern but also branching into the late-Imperial period. He hopes to offer more courses that focus on the relationship between premodern and modern periods in Chinese culture, as well as comparative studies between China and the West.