Jie Yang

Biography

Dr. Jie Yang, Professor of anthropology, received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Toronto in 2006. Dr. Yang鈥檚 research is at the intersection of two primary areas: linguistic anthropology and China studies. In the first area, she is interested in the analysis of how power and ideologies are embedded in and work through language and how ideologies interpellate individuals and constitute/remold subjectivities. In the second area, Dr. Yang鈥檚 research interests focus on the aesthetic, therapeutic and neoliberal governance in contemporary China. Her two current research projects: one is China鈥檚 beauty economy, which capitalizes on the female body, feminine beauty, feminine youth, and sexuality. The other is the rise of the therapeutic in China (e.g. psychiatry, ecopsychology, counseling, social work, therapeutic consumption, therapeutic lifestyle). This project engages two areas of research on the notion of the therapeutic: one refers to a certain class of experts and the procedures they use to address psychic and physical problems; the other area of research is the modern welfare state and its ideologies, programs and policies that diagnose and normalize the marginalized groups.

Dr. Yang is currently working on two projects: an edited volume The Political Economy of Affect and Emotion in Contemporary East Asia and a monograph The Rise of the Therapeutic: Governing the New Urban Poor and the Mentally Ill in China.

A complete list of Dr. Yang's publications can be found on

Education

PhD (Anthropology), University of Toronto
MA (Sociolinguistics), Beijing Language & Cultural University
BA (English Language & Literature), Shandong University, Jinan, China

Areas of Interest

Language; media; ideology and power; postsocialism; neoliberalism; development and environment; unemployment and urban poverty; gender and sexuality; mental health; China.

Select Publications

Books and Special Issues

Special Issue: Beyond Psyche: The Heart, Aesthetic Attunement, and Alternative Psychological Care in Japan and China. Review of General Psychology (Intro and 7 articles)
Cambridge and New York: Polity Press, 2017.
. Cornell University Press, 2015.
Foreword by Sara Ahmed. London and New York: Routledge, 2014 (ed.).

Peer-Reviewed Articles

2024 "Plucking Heartstrings: Guqin, Aesthetic Attunement, and TCM Music Therapy" (with Wenlei Huang). Review of General Psychology.
2024 Introduction. "Beyond Psyche: Aesthetic Attunement and Alternative Psychological Care through the Heart." Review of General Psychology.
2023 鈥淗allucination of China Dream: Forbidden Voice, Articulation, and Schizophrenia in China.鈥� Medical Anthropology
2021 鈥淏ureaucratic Shiyuzheng鈥�: Silence, Affect, and the Politics of Voice in China. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 11(3): 972-985.
2020 鈥淭he Power of Aroma: Gender, Biopolitics, and Melodramatic Imagination in the Legend of Zhenhuan.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Feminist Media Studies 21(5): 707-720.
2019 鈥�Hidden Rules and The Heartache of Chinese Government Officials.鈥� Made in China Journal. 4 (1): 36-41, April 23, 2019.
2019 鈥淯nemployment and Mental Health in China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Asia-Dialogue, April 15, 2019.
2018 "鈥極fficials' Heartache鈥�: Depression, Bureaucracy, and Therapeutic Governance in China." Current Anthropology 58 (5): 596-15.
2017 鈥淰irtuous Power: Ethics, Confucianism and Psychological Self-Help in China.鈥�Critique of Anthropology 37 (2):179-200.
2016 鈥淭he Politics and Regulation of Anger in Urban China.鈥�Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 40 (1).
2014 "Informal Surrogacy in China: Embodiment and Biopower." Body and Society DOI: 10.1177/1357034X14539357.
2013 Ethos41 (3): 291-311.
2013 "Peiliao 鈥�Companion to Chat鈥�: Gender, Psychologization and Psychological Labor in China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Social Analysis 57 (2): 41-58.
2013 鈥� Social Semiotics 23 (5) doi: 10.1080/10350330.2012.752159/
2012 鈥淭he Politics of Huanghua: Gender, Metaphors, and Privatization in China.鈥� Language and Communication doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2012.08.003
2012 鈥�Song Wennuan 鈥楽ending Warmth鈥�: Unemployment, New Urban Poverty, and the Affective State in China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Ethnography. doi:10.1177/1466138111435043
2011 鈥淭he Politics of 顿补苍驳鈥檃苍: Spectralization, Spatialization and Neoliberal Governmentality in China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Anthropological Quarterly 84 (2): 507-534.
2011 鈥�Nennu and Shunu: Gender, Body Politics and the Beauty Economy in China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 36 (2): 333-357.
2010 鈥淭he Crisis of Masculinity: Class, Gender, and Kindly Power in Post-Mao China鈥� American Ethnologist 37 (3): 550-562.
2007 鈥�Zuiqian 鈥楧eficient Mouth鈥�: Language, Gender and Domestic Violence in Urban China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Gender and Language 1 (1):105-116.

Book Chapters and Encyclopedia Entries

2024 "Gongju Ren 鈥楾ool People鈥�: Alienation, Spiritual Lethargy, and Social Work in China鈥� (with Wenlei Huang). Values and Indigenous psychology in the Age of the Machine and Market, edited by Al Dueck and Louise Sundararajan. Springer.
2023 (with Xiaowen Zhang) "Obligatory Death in Wuhan: The Power to Decide Who Died, and Therapies for Those Who Survived". In Globalization, Displacement, and Psychiatry Global Histories of Trauma. Edited By , . London: Routledge.
2022 鈥淐onfucius in a Self-Help Group.鈥� Philosophy on Fieldwork: Critical Introductions to Theory and Analysis in Anthropological Practice, edited by Nils Bubandt and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer. London: Routledge.
2021 Foreword. Ignorance is Bliss: The Chinese Art of Not Knowing by Mieke Matthyssen. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
2021 鈥淭he Rise of the Therapeutic in China.鈥� In Mental Health in China and Chinese Diaspora in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Harry Minas. New York: Springer.
2020 鈥淐ounseling and Confucianism in China: A New Twist on Tradition.鈥� In The Routledge Handbook of Global Therapeutic Culture, edited by Daniel Nehring, Ole Jacob Madsen, Edgar Cabanas, China Mills and Dylan Kerrigan, 245-256. London: Routledge.
2018 鈥淒iscourse, Gender and Psychologization in China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis, edited by Chris Shei, 310-322. London: Routlege.
2018 鈥淏iopower.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, edited by Hilary Callen, 1-9. Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea169.
2018 鈥淗appy Housewives: Gender, Class, and Psychological Self-Help in Urban China.鈥� In Chinese Discourses of Happiness, edited by Gerda Wielander and Derek Hird, 129-149. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
2017 鈥淗olistic Labor: Gender, Beauty and the Wellness Industry in China.鈥� In Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics in Neoliberalism, edited by Ana Sofia Elias, Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff, 117-131. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
2014 鈥淚ntroduction: Potentiality and Imagination: the Political Economy of Affect an Emotion in East Asia鈥� In The Political Economy of Affect and Emotion in East Asia, ed. Jie Yang. Routledge.
2014 鈥淭he Happiness of the Marginalized: Affect, Counseling and Self-Reflexivity in China鈥� In The Political Economy of Affect and Emotion in East Asia, ed. Jie Yang. Routledge.
2012 鈥淏eauty Products and Health.鈥�The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health and Society, eds. William C. Cockerham, Robert Dingwall and Stella Quah. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
2011 鈥淩enqing, Privatization and Kindly Power in Post-Mao China.鈥� In Along the Silk Road: Essays on History, Literature and Culture in China, eds. Darrol Bryant, Yan Li, and Judith Maclean Miller, 102-118. Pandora Press.
2011 鈥�Zuiqian 鈥楧eficient Mouth鈥�: Language, Gender and Domestic Violence in Urban China.鈥�&苍产蝉辫;Language and Gender: A Reader. 2^nd edition, eds. Jennifer Coates and Pia Pichler, 183-192. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
2007 鈥淩eemployment Stars鈥�: Language, Gender and Neoliberal Restructuring in China. In Words, Worlds, Material Girls: Language, Gender and Global Economies, ed. Bonnie McElhinny, 73-102. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Book Reviews

2016 Review of The Impotence Epidemic: Men鈥檚 Medicine and Sexual Desire in Contemporary China by Everett Yuehong Zhang. American Anthropologist 118 (4): 989-990.
2014 Review of The 鈥淪pecter鈥� of the People: Urban Poverty in Northeast China by Mun Young Cho. American Ethnologist 41(3).
2014 Review of Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality Among China鈥檚 New Rich by John Osburg. American Ethnologist 41 (4).
2014 Review of A Localized Culture of Welfare: Entitlements, Stratification, and Identity in a Chinese Lineage Village by Kwok-Shing Chan. American Anthropologist 116 (4).

Awards & Funding

SSHRC Partnership Development Grant (2022-2025)
"Learning from Chinese classics: Indigenous psychology and psychological care for China and the World"
SSHRC Insight Grant (2019-2024)
鈥淥fficials鈥� Heartache: Gender, Double Binds, and Psychologization in China鈥�
Francis L.K. Hsu Book Prize (2016), Society for East Asian Anthropology, American Anthropological Association
SSHRC Standard Research Grant (2011-2014)
鈥淭herapeutic Politics in China: Gender, Psychotherapy, and New Urban Poverty鈥�
SSHRC 4A Grant (2009-2010)
鈥淕ender, Psychology and Therapeutic Authority in Contemporary China鈥�
SSHRC Institutional Grant (2007-2009)
"Governing the Urban Poverty and Mental Health Crisis in China"
SFU/President Start-up Research Grant (2007-2009)
"'Green Olympics, Humane Olympics': Environment and Development in China"

Public Anthropology and Media

Currently Teaching

Summer 2025

Future courses may be subject to change.

尤物视频

Sociology & Anthropology