Thomas Kelly

I am a scholar of Chinese literature with related research interests in the history of writing, material culture, and performance. 

My first book, The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China (Columbia UP, 2023), develops a new account of the relationship between literature and material culture by examining inscribed objects from the Ming and Qing periods. The book argues that the act of inscribing an object became a means for writers to grapple with the materiality and technologies of writing. I discuss the book in a recent New Books Network podcast. 

I am currently working on two new projects. The first, entitled The Unfinished Book, circa 1645, investigates the relationship between a poetics of incompletion and manuscript culture during the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. I provide a brief introduction to this project here. My research for this book has been supported by fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. Articles related to this project have appeared in, or are forthcoming from, Asia Major and T'oung Pao. 

My second project explores the idea of performance in early modern China by examining the life and essays of the drama critic Pan Zhiheng (1566–1622). I am currently editing a volume of Pan's critical writings on the voice, sound, and acting entitled Anatomy of Performance. I recently organized a symposium at Harvard related to this project with grants from the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Geiss Hsu Foundation. I am also collaborating on a scholarly translation of Li Yu's (1611–1680) monumental guide to daily life, Casual Expressions of Idle Feelings (Xianqing ouji). 

I have published articles on topics including the relationship between poetry and ink making, the use of riddles in vernacular fiction, the animation of props, and the staging of underworld courtroom trials in Chinese theater. I maintain wide-ranging research and teaching interests in drama, fiction, poetry, and prose.

I received my PhD from the University of Chicago in 2017 and BA from the University of Oxford in 2009. Before joining Harvard, I was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at the University of Michigan. I am currently serving as the President of the Society for Ming Studies.