Shang Cheng
From literature to history, my work has been driven by a desire to understand how we know what we know and to question the legitimacy of that epistemology. I trained first in literature and translation, drawn to the possibilities of words and storytelling beyond norms and “reality” itself. This led me to visual and gender studies during my MPhil at Oxford, where I wrote a thesis on queer representation and visual heterotopias in contemporary Japanese cinema. Through studying gender, representation, and their intellectual histories, I came to see history as the work of unearthing “truth” in the plural: stories not only of “his”, but of “hers” as well. History breeds possibilities.
Before returning to Oxford for my DPhil in History, I worked as a TV director and screenwriter in Shanghai and Beijing, where I continued to experiment with visual representation and storytelling, and developed an interest in participatory culture and grassroots associations through work with subculture groups. These experiences inform my current research, which traces the Japanese counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s back to the immediate postwar years through the Fūgetsudō coffeehouse in Shinjuku and other non-official venues that fostered non-state cultural production. Following the poet and underground theatre practitioner Terayama Shūji, I examine countercultural expression across literature, music, theatre, and photography, showing how artistic practices turned non-normative bodies, gender and sexuality, family and intimacy, and everyday space into widely circulating cultural phenomena.
Department: Faculty of History
College: St. Antony’s College
Research Interests: Cultural and Intellectual History; Transnational History; Women’s History; Queer Studies; Theatre Studies; Comparative Literature; Translation Studies.
Previous Degrees:
BA in Chinese Language and Literature, Beijing Normal University (2014/2018)
MPhil in Japanese Studies (distinction), University of Oxford (2018/2020)
Supervisor: Professor Sho Konishi
