Lijun Zhang

Assistant Professor

Folklore: Oral Narrative, Material Culture, Heritage, Museums, Tourism, Ethnography, China, East Asia

Lijun Zhang (Ph.D., Indiana University-Bloomington) is Assistant Professor of Folklore in George Mason University’s English Department. Her research interests include oral narrative, material culture, heritage (Tangible and Intangible), museums and curatorship, institutionalization, tourism, and folklore of China and East Asia. She is co-editor of Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice and Quilts of Southwest China. She co-curated “Putting Baskets to Use in Southwest China” and the international traveling exhibition “Quilts of Southwest China”. She serves on the editorial board of Museum Anthropology Review. Her current work focuses on collaborating with a team of international scholars to conduct ethnographic research regarding material culture in southwest China. And she is also working on a monograph on ethnographic research on tulou (rammed earth building) world heritage site in southeast China.

Selected Publications

Books

Zhang, Lijun and Ziying You, editors. 2019. Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [in English] link

MacDowell, Marsha and Lijun Zhang, editors. 2016. Quilts of Southwest China. Nanning: Guangxi People’s Press and Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [in English and Chinese] link

Articles and Chapters

Zhang, Lijun. 2019. “Institutional Practice of Heritage-making: The Transformation of Tulou from Residential Home to UNESCO World Heritage Site” in Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice. Lijun Zhang and Ziying You, eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.[in English]

Zhang, Lijun and Ziying You. 2019. “Introduction: History and Trends of Chinese Folklore Studies” in Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice. Lijun Zhang and Ziying You, eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [in English]

Zhang, Lijun. 2018. “Presentation, Representation, and Museumification in Heritage Tourism: The Case of Hongkeng Hakka Earth Building Folk Cultural Village.” Museum Anthropology Review. 12 (1): 5-13. [in English]

Zhang, Lijun. 2016. “Performing Locality and Identity: Rickshaw Driver’s Narratives and Tourism.” Cambridge Journal of China Studies. 11 (1): 88-103. [in English]

Expanded Publication List

Articles and Chapters

Jackson, Jason Baird, Johannes Müske, and Lijun Zhang. 2019. 创新、惯习与遗产：关于文化形式历史发展进程的理论模型 [Innovation, Habitus, and Heritage: Modeling the Careers of Cultural Forms Through Time]. 民间文化论坛. [Folk Culture Forum.] 254: 5-15. [in Chinese]

Zhang, Lijun. 2018. “The Institutional Practice of Constructing Cultural Space at Guangxi Ethnic Ecomuseums: Ethnographic Research at the Nandan Lihu White-trousers Yao Ecomuseum.” In Guangxi Ethnic Eco-museums “1+10 Project”. Anthropology Museum of Guangxi Editorial Committee, ed. Pp. 31-38. Nanning: Guangxi People’s Press. [in Chinese]

MacDowell, Marsha and Lijun Zhang. 2016. “Quilts of Southwest China: Research in Progress.” in Quilts of Southwest China. Marsha MacDowell and Lijun Zhang, eds. Pp. 7-16. Nanning: Guangxi People’s Press and Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [in English and Chinese]

Wang, Wei and Lijun Zhang. 2016. “Guangxi Museum of Nationalities.” in Quilts of Southwest China. Marsha MacDowell and Lijun Zhang, eds. Pp. 80-83. Nanning: Guangxi People’s Press and Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [in English and Chinese]

Zhang, Lijun and Weiping Lee with Jason Baird Jackson. 2012. 美国民俗学领域物质文化研究的兴起与现状—印第安纳大学民俗学与音乐人类学系杰森.拜尔德.杰克逊访谈录“The Emergence of Material Culture Studies in American Folkloristics and the Field's Present Status: An Interview with Jason Baird Jackson of the Indiana University Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology”. Translated by Yu Qian and Cheng Anxia. 民俗研究[Folklore Studies] 2012 (4): 47-56. [in Chinese]

Book for General Audience

Zhang, Lijun. 2010. Chinese Folk Arts and Crafts. Beijing: China Agriculture Press. [in Chinese]

Book Reviews

Zhang, Lijun. 2018. Review of: Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities (Harvard University Press 2015). Museum Anthropology Review. Vol.12 No.2: 156-157. [in Chinese]

Zhang, Lijun. 2016. Review of: Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities (Harvard University Press 2015). Museum Anthropology Review. Vol.10 No.1: 59-61. [in English]

Zhang, Lijun. 2012. Review of: World Heritage Angkor and Beyond: Circumstances and Implications of UNESCO Listings in Cambodia (Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2011). Journal of Folklore Research Reviews. [in English]

Digital Publications

Jackson, Jason and Lijun Zhang. 2019. “Is that a Pig in Your Basket?” Folklife. 2019. [in English]

Jason Jackson and Lijun Zhang. 2018. “Common Instruments: Putting Baskets to Work in Southwest China.” Hand/Eye Magazine. June 20, 2018. [in English]

Zhang, Lijun, Haiyan Ma, and Yaofeng Wang. 2008. “Auspicious Elements in Chinese Folk Culture.” National Culture. [in Chinese]

Exhibits

Zhang, Lijun and Marsha MacDowell. 2018. “Quilting Arts and Tradition: People, Handcrafts, and Community Life.” Anthropological Museum of Guangxi, Nanning, China. [A reworked version of “Quilts of Southwest China” for Chinese audience with the major exhibition items from the Anthropological Museum of Guagnxi’s Collection. Travel Exhibition Venue: Yunan Nationalities Museum, Yulin Museum in Guangxi.]

MacDowell, Marsha and Lijun Zhang. 2015. “Quilts of Southwest China.” Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, Michigan, USA. [Exhibition as a part of a collaborative project between American Folklore Society and Chinese Folklore Society. Travel Exhibition Venues: International Quilt Study Center at University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Mathers Museum of World Cultures at Indiana University in Bloomington, and the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe.]

Jackson, Jason Baird and Lijun Zhang. 2015. “Putting Baskets to Work in Southwest China.” Mathers Museum of World Cultures, Bloomington, Indiana, USA. [Exhibition as a part of a collaborative project between American Folklore Society and Chinese Folklore Society. Travel Exhibition Venue: Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma in Norman.]

Courses Taught

ENGH 315 Folklore and Folklife

ENGH 412/590 Folk Narratives: Past & Present

Recent Presentations

Conference Papers

2019. "Baskets in a Baiku Yao Community Today." Annual Conference of the American Anthropology Association. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

2019. "The Semantics of Safeguarding in the Context of UNESCO and China." Critical Developments in Cultural Sustainability Working Conference. The Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. Washington D.C., USA.

2019. “Institutional Practice of Heritage Making: The Transformation of Tulou From Residential Home to UNESCO World Heritage.” Annual Conference of the American Folklore Society. Baltimore, Maryland, USA.

2019. “Building a Museum Collection of Work Baskets in Northern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.” Annual Conference of the American Folklore Society. Baltimore, Maryland, USA. (with Jason Baird Jackson)

2019. “Collaboration with Community Individuals and Ecomuseums in Ethnographic Research.” The Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum folklore and Heritage Studies. Indiana University Beijing Gateway, Beijing, China.

2018. “Continuity and Transformation: Basketry, Personal History, and Community Life.” Annual Conference of the American Folklore Society. Buffalo, New York, USA.

2017. “The Quilts of Southwest China Catalog: A Binational and Bilingual Collaborative Museum Publication Project.” Annual Conference of the American Folklore Society. Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.