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Associate Professor Yixu Lu

Dr. Phil., MA (Regensburg); BA (Beijing).
Chair of Department
Brennan MacCallum Building, Room 518
Phone: +61 2 9351 3293


After obtaining her first degree at the Peking University, Yixu Lu spent seven years as a postgraduate at the Universität Regensburg, specialising in German Literature and Modern European history. Her doctoral dissertation there was on German drama of the early nineteenth century. She came to Australia as a Postdoctoral Fellow, and has taught at the Universities of Adelaide, Melbourne and UTS. She has held an Alexander von Humboldt-Fellowship at the Universität zu Köln (2002-2003, 2008) and a guest professorship at the Chinese Ocean University, Qingdao (2007-2009).

Research areas

Yixu Lu's main research interest is modern German literature and history. Her research work concentrates on the following areas: 18th-20th century German literature; German colonialism and nationalism, Greek myth in German literature and contemporary German culture and society.

Current projects

Her current research includes a book project on Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) and two ARC projects on German colonialism in China in conjunction with Professor David Goodman (China Studies Centre): Germany in China: Colonial Interactions, Qingdao 1897-1914 examines the contemporary record of Chinese-German interaction in the former German colony, so as to assess different facets of Qingdao's subjugation by Germany as an atypical example of colonialism and its impact on Chinese nationalism; Colonial Cosmopolitanism and Chinese Modernity: German cultural and economic adventurers in China 1875-1937 focuses on the life histories of Germans who lived in China in the context of colonial cosmopolitanism.

Selected publications

Books

  • Yixu Lu: Medea unter den Deutschen. Wandlungen einer literarischen Figur [Medea among the Germans. Transformations of a literary figure]. Freiburg i Br.: Rombach 2009, 270pp.
  • Yixu Lu (ed., with Sun Lixin): Zhimin Zhuyi yu Zhongguo Jindai Shehui [Colonialism and Modern Chinese Society]. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe 2009, 427pp.
  • Yixu Lu: Frauenherrschaft im Drama des frühen 19. Jahrhunderts [States ruled by women in German dramas of the early 19th century. Munich 1993, 234 pp.

Book chapters

  • Yixu Lu: Authentizität und Maskerade. Erzählstrategien in den China-Romanen Paul Lindenbergs [Authenticity and Masquerade: Narrative Strategies in the China-Novels of Paul Lindenberg]. In: Ortrud Gutjahr, Stefan Hermes (eds.): Maskeraden des (Post-)Kolonialismus. Verschattete Repräsentationen der ,Anderen‘ in der deutschsprachigen Literatur und im Film , Würzburg 2011, p. 195-219.
  • Yixu Lu: The war that scarcely was: The Berliner Morgenpost and the Boxer Uprising. In: Michael Perraudin and Jürgen Zimmerer (eds.): German Colonialism and National identity. New York: Routledge 2010, p. 45-56.
  • Yixu Lu: Transformations of Medea on the Eighteenth-Century German Stage. In: Heike Bartel, Anne Simon (eds.): Unbinding Medea. Interdisciplinary Approaches to a Classical Myth from Antiquity to the 21st Century. London: Legenda 2010, pp. 148-160.
  • Yixu Lu (with David Goodman): Jiaxin yu Zhongguo: Elisabeth Frey zai Tianjin 1913-1914 (Family Letters and China. Elisabeth Frey in Tianjin 1913-1914). In: Yixu Lu (ed., with Sun Lixin): Zhimin Zhuyi yu Zhongguo Jindai Shehui [Colonialism and Modern Chinese Society], Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe 2009, pp 128-158.
  • Yixu Lu: Qingdao. In: David Pong (Editor in Chief): Encyclopaedia of Modern China. Volumes: 4, Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2009, pp.235-37 (Associate Editors: Julia F. Andrews, Jean-Philippe Beja, Flemming Christiansen, David Faure, Antonia Finnane)
  • Yixu Lu: Exiled in the Homeland: Heiner Müller's “Medea”, in: Paul Allatson and Jo McCormack (eds.): Exile Cultures, Misplaced Identities. Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2008, pp. 185-204.
  • Yixu Lu: Der Boxer-Aufstand in der Literatur [The Boxer Uprising in Literature]. In: Mechthild Leutner/Klaus Mühlhahn (eds): Kolonialkrieg in China .Die Niederschlagung der Boxerbewegung1900-1901 [Colonial war in China. The Suppression of the Boxer Uprising 1900-1901]. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2007, pp. 192-98.
  • Yixu Lu: Germany: Myth and Apologia in Christa Wolf's Novel “Medea. Voices”. In: Maja Mikula (ed.): Women, Activism and Social Change: Stretching Boundaries. London and New York: Routledge 2005 (= Routledge research in gender and society 10), pp. 198-214.
  • Yixu Lu: Die problematische Katharsis. Läuterungsprozesse im Werk Kleists [The problematical catharsis. Processes of purification of in Kleist’s works]. In: Peter Ensberg and Hans-Jochen Marquardt (eds): Kleists Beiträge zur Ästhetik der Moderne [Kleist‘s contributions to the aesthetics of modernism]. Stuttgart: 2002, pp. 171-182.

Refereed articles

  • Yixu Lu: Germany's war in China: media coverage and political myth. In: German Life and Letters (61:2), 2008, pp. 202-214
    Yixu Lu: Geschichte und Fiktion: der Boxer-Aufstand in der zeitgenössischen deutschen Popularliteratur [History and fiction. The Boxer Uprising in contemporary German popular literature]. In: Jean-Marie Valentin (ed.): Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik. Reihe A, Bd. 84 . Bern/Berlin/Bruxelles 2007, vol. 8, pp. 229-234.
  • Yixu Lu: Exile and Stasis in Heiner Müller's Medea-Adaptation. In: International Yearbook of the Society of Literature and Aesthetics IV, 2006. pp. 81-98.
  • Yixu Lu: German Colonial Fiction on China: The Boxer-Uprising 1900-1901. In: German Life and Letters (59:1), 2006, pp.78-100.
  • Anthony Stephens and Yixu Lu: Die Ersetzbarkeit des Menschen. Alter Ego und Stellvertreter im Werk Heinrich von Kleists. [Interchangeable characters. Alter Egos and Proxiesin the Works of Heinrich von Kleist]. In: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schiller-Gesellschaft, XXXVIII, 1994, pp. 116-138.
  • Anthony Stephens and Yixu Lu: Die Verführung des Lesers im Erzählwerk Kleists. [The Seduction of the Reader in Kleist’s Narrative]. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch , 1994, pp. 104-117.

Encylopedia

  • Yixu Lü: Qingdao. In: David Pong (Editor in Chief): Encyclopaedia of Modern China. Volumes: 4, Detroit, MI: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2009, pp.235-37 (Associate Editors: Julia F. Andrews, Jean-Philippe Beja, Flemming Christiansen, David Faure, Antonia Finnane)
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Areas of teaching and research supervision

Teaching

  • German Literature from the Enlightenment to the Present
  • German history and society of the 19th century
  • Myth and literature
  • Contemporary German culture and society

Supervision

  • German literature from 18th century to the present
  • Heinrich von Kleist
  • German colonialism in China
  • Myth and literature
  • Women in German literature of the 18th and 19th century
  • Media and culture in 20th century Germany
  • German missionaries in Australia
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