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 specialties 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 as associate editor of the Journal of American Folklore and on the editorial board of Museum Anthropology Review. She collaborates with a team of international scholars to conduct ethnographic research regarding material culture in southwest China. 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 distributed by Indiana University Press. [in English and Chinese] link

Articles and Book Chapters

Zhang, Lijun, Jason Baird Jackson, C. Kurt Dewhurst, and Jon Kay. Forthcoming. “Basketry Among Two Peoples of Northern Guangxi, China.” Asian Ethnology. [in English]

Zhang, Lijun. 2021. “The Practice of Public Folklore in the United States in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic [Xinguan feiyan yiqing xia de meiguo gonggong minusxue shijian].” Folk Culture Forum [Minjian wenhua luntan], (2): 5-15. [in Chinese]

Jackson, Jason Baird, Johannes Müske, and Lijun Zhang. 2020. "Innovation, Habitus, and Heritage: Modeling the Careers of Cultural Forms Through Time." Journal of Folklore Research 57, no. 1: 111-36. [in English]

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. "Chuangxin, guanxi yu yichan: guanyu wenhua xingshi lishi fazhan jincheng de lilun moxing" [Innovation, Habitus, and Heritage: Modeling the Careers of Cultural Forms Through Time]. Minjian wenhua luntan [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. "Meiguo minsuxue lingyu wuzhi wenhua yanjiu de xingqi yu xianzhuang--Yindianna daxue minsuxue yu yinyue renleixue xi jieseng baierde jiekexun fangtan" [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. Minsu Yanjiu [Folklore Studies] 2012 (4): 47-56. [in Chinese]

Book for General Audience

Zhang, Lijun. 2010. Chinese Folk Art 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

Number	Topic	Semester(s)
ENGH 315	Folklore and Folklife	Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020
ENGH 412/590	Folk Narratives: Past & Present	Spring 2020
ENGH 412/591	Material Culture and Museums	Fall 2020

Recent Presentations

2021. "Quilts of Southwest China." Textile Talks. (with Marsha MacDowell) (Online)

2020. “The Peoples of Southwest China and Their Traditional Arts.” San Antonio Museum of Art. San Antonio, Texas, USA.(with Jason Baird Jackson) (Online)

2020. “Meta-cultural Awareness and Museumification: The Idealized Representation of Tulou Living Space in Heritage Tourism.” Institute of Folk Literature, School of Chinese Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University. Beijing, China. (Online)

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.