Anna M. Shields

Anna M. Shields, Gordon Wu ’58 Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, received her A.M. from Harvard University and her Ph.D. from Indiana University. She specializes in classical Chinese literature of the Tang, Five Dynasties, and Northern Song eras. Her research areas include literary history and the emergence of new literary genres and styles in late medieval China; the sociology of literature; and emotions in classical literature. Her first book, Crafting a Collection: The Cultural Contexts and Poetic Practice of the Collection from among the Flowers (Huajian ji) (Harvard Asia Center 2006), examined the emergence of the song lyric in a path-breaking anthology. Her second book, One Who Knows Me: Friendship and Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China (Harvard 2015) explores the literary performance of friendship in ninth-century China through genres such as letters, prefaces, exchange poetry, and funerary texts. Her most recent publication is a co-edited volume (with Gil Raz, Dartmouth), Religion and Poetry in Medieval China: The Way and the Words (Amsterdam UP 2023) that examines intersections of religion and literature in medieval China. She has also taught at the University of Arizona (1999-2006) and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (2007-2015).