Xuefei Ma (Ph.D. University of Arizona) is an Assistant Professor of Chinese Culture at the Department of World Languages and Cultures, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research focuses on feminist, queer, and trans cultural production in the global Chinese and Sinophone communities. Adopting interdisciplinary methods to examine contemporary art, cinema, and feminist activism, Xuefei considers the following two key questions: 1) how Chinese feminisms contribute to the global feminist movements, and 2) in what ways mutual transformations between humans and animals in Chinese literary works and digital media production shed light on our understanding of the Anthropocene.

In her current book project, “Between WoMen: Female Homosociality and Trans-relational Aesthetics in and beyond the Chinese World,” Xuefei examines women’s bonding through artistic expressions such as nüshu (“女书/女書”, women’s homosocial culture based on gendered script in rural China) in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and discusses the promises and threats of transnational feminist coalitions in the conflicting forces of globalization and nationalism.

Xuefei’s new project examines animals’ extinction along the Yangtze River. Focusing on the mutual transformations of the human and the baiji (fresh-water dolphins in the Yangtze River that were announced extinct in 2006) in Chinese literary works and digital media production, Xuefei discusses the complex interplay of gender (re-)production and the de-centering of the human in the Anthropocene. In her next book project, she will expand this theoretical intervention with more examples of human-animal transformations in Chinese and Sinophone digital media production, contemporary art, and Sci-Fi works and contribute to the global trans and affect theory.

Xuefei teaches in the intersection of (global) China Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies. She is passionate about supporting students and nurturing the next generation of scholars. When she is not teaching and writing, she is singing and dancing.

Publications

Ma, Xuefei (2023), ‘Queer voice(over): Reassembling female desire in Chinese cinema’, Asian Cinema, 34:1, pp. 103–22, https://doi.org/10.1386/ac_00065_1.

Ma, Xuefei (2021) “HerStory (2007): Falling with Hong Kong in women’s writing and dance.” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, 8(1), pp.71–86, https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00038_1.

Ma, Xuefei (2020) “‘Keeping up with the Times’: Nüxing, Funü and the Affective Value of the Formulated Text.” In Vera da Silva Sinha, Ana Moreno-Núñez & Zhen Tian eds. Language, Culture and Identity: Signs of Life. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp.275-293, https://doi.org/10.1075/clscc.13.13ma.

Ma, Xuefei (2020) “Affect Theory and Feminisms: Rethinking Body and the World.” Chinese publication. In Affect Theory and Culture Analysis. eds. Yanhua Zhou and Xuefei Ma. pp. 160-201. Chongqing: Chongqing Publishing Group, 2020. ISBN: 978-7-229-14269-8. (Reprinted here by public WeChat account “Art in Action”)

Ma, Xuefei and Zhou, Yanhua (2020) Affect Theory and Culture Analysis. (Chinese, with a translation of Lauren Berlant, Desire/Love. Punctum Books, 2012.) Chongqing: Chongqing Publishing Group, 2020. ISBN: 978-7-229-14269-8.

Awards/Honors

Fellowship:

2022-2023 “Stop Sexual Violence!: Pop Culture and Female Bonding in China’s Pandemic Era.” The Luce/ACLS Program in China Studies, Early Career Research Fellowships. https://www.acls.org/fellow-grantees/xuefei-ma/

Creative Work and Public Engagement:

Discussant. Voice-Over, ep.11. Podcast discussion on film Journey to the West (KONG Dashan, dir. 2023). https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/%E7%94%BB%E5%A4%96%E9%9F%B3/id1676556255?i=1000618029645

Discussant. Voice-Over, ep.12. Podcast discussion on film Journey to the West (KONG Dashan, dir. 2023). https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/seven-qi/episodes/12Journey-to-the-West-e25l9dv/a-aa1euss

Co-translator. Sculpture Factory Fantasia (Hai Ren, dir. 2020). A documentary presented by The Center for Research-Oriented Art, University of Arizona and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.  https://vimeo.com/463476477