Zhenzhen Lu

Zhenzhen Lu is an Assistant Professor at Bates College specializing in Chinese literature and manuscript culture from the 16th to 19th centuries. She holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and has held research positions at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg and visiting scholar appointments at New York University.

Her research examines vernacular literature production, scribal publishing, and performance traditions in late imperial China, with particular expertise in Pu Songling's manuscripts, zidishu storytelling, and 19th-century Beijing's literary markets. She employs interdisciplinary approaches combining material text studies, cultural history, and literary analysis.

Professor Lu's extensive publication record demonstrates consistent focus on Chinese manuscript cultures, with recent works exploring the social contexts of textual production, vernacular storytelling traditions, and the interplay between manuscript and print cultures during Qing and Republican eras. Her scholarship contributes significantly to understanding popular literatures and their transmission mechanisms in East Asia.