From Harvard to UIC: An Interview with Professor Tony Qian, UIC’s New Asian Studies Faculty

Get to know Professor Tony Qian!

Hello, I’m Tony Qian. I grew up in New York and moved to Boston for college, where I got my B.A. in literature from Harvard College. Then, I completed a J.D. at Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. I came to Korea about three years ago with my wife, Valerie, and I have two young kids, Lydia and Margaret. We came because I received a Fulbright scholarship, which was a good opportunity for us to move to Korea. We attend Galilee Baptist Church in the Sinchon Area. We’re very involved in the ministry there, and our faith is an important part of our lives. In my free time, I chase after my two girls, and I like to read, especially CS Lewis, one of my favorite authors. I also follow Yankees baseball since I grew up in New York.

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Did you have a clear career goal at the start of your undergraduate studies at Harvard?

I actually applied to Harvard as a biochem major because I attended a science high school. I went to Stuyvesant High School, best known as the high school next to the World Trade Center. I was a sophomore when 9/11 occurred, and it was an influential period of my life. When I entered college, I realized biochem wasn’t what I wanted to do. Science wasn’t my strength or my interest. I had a vague notion of going to med school, but it was more my parents’ dream. So, I decided to concentrate on literature because I grew up loving to read, especially Tang poetry. Although I loved it, I had no idea what to do with it career-wise. I thought I could attend law school with a humanities major, which was a practical choice. So, I did my Bachelor’s in literature and then applied to law school afterward. While applying, I decided to go to grad school at the same time and I was fortunately accepted into both. It was perfect timing; Harvard had just started a joint program for a Ph.D. and J.D., and they paid for most of my law school tuition through this program.

I completed my law degree and internships but realized I didn’t want to practice law. I still loved academia and being a grad student. My advisor was Prof. Stephen Owen, a Tang Scholar I’d known since my undergrad days, and working with him reminded me of my childhood, when I read Tang poetry. I did my Ph.D. topic on law and literature. Prof. Owen recommended that I look at the legal rulings from the Tang Dynasty, so I compared them to Roman declamations as my comparative literature dissertation. After that, I taught at Tufts and Harvard as an adjunct, and then the opportunity opened to come to Korea as a Fulbright Scholar.

Could you tell us more about your research?

On the Roman side, students practicing for an eventual career in law practiced giving speeches on hypothetical legal cases. Many of these cases are quite far-fetched and weren’t legally very plausible, but that was the way for these students to practice their rhetorical skills, speak, and argue different sides of an issue. That genre was called declamations—comparing that to the Tang side, you have these judgments written in very polished and dense literary prose in response to certain hypothetical legal scenarios. I compare the different uses of rhetoric and ways to use narrative to make a legal case.

My Fulbright research was an extension of the Tang project. The legal judgment tradition began in the Tang but continued into the late imperial period. When I came to Korea, I wanted to compare that to Joseon legal practice as well as Joseon magistrates, who were also influenced by the same kind of literary culture as Chinese magistrates. They had to learn the same corpus of Confucian text and histories and I saw how that affected their decision-making, which allowed me to compare the differences between native legal culture in China with more of an imported legal culture and individualism.

Are you continuing that research or considering going a different route?

I’m still working on the Fulbright Project. It’s my longterm project as well as my book manuscript. I’ve narrowed my focus to late imperial and Joseon marriage cases. I look at different types of storytellers of marriage and how marriage is told in legal, literary, and historical sources. My approach is looking at marriage controversies in law. I just published an article about late Imperial China, specifically looking at the Ming dynasty’s legal collection and marriage cases. I wanted to expand that and put that kind of legal document in the context of the literati code.

Right now, I’m working on an article on the legal judgments that King Jeongjo wrote. For that, I’m looking at homicide cases and how the king ruled and used rhetoric and narratives to make his rulings. I also have other interests. One that extends beyond law and literature is looking at translations. At the turn of the 20th century, I want to examine how works from the West, like historical romances, detective fiction, and missionary novels, were translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. The translation process reveals this interaction between the various cultures.

How has been your transition from Seoul National University (SNU) to UIC?

I applied for an appointment as a visiting scholar at the Seoul National University Asia Center, and that’s how I got into the SNU community. I taught a traditional Chinese literature course there for three semesters. As I transition here, I also teach the same courses. One focuses on the tales of the strange and fantastic, and the other on outlaws. There’s a law and literature element to how outlaws are depicted in East Asian literature. There’s a mix of international and Korean students at UIC and SNU. So that has stayed the same.

I’ve been impressed by my UIC students here. Some students are very committed and they read carefully, are willing to participate, and have good ideas. Some students comment on things that I’ve never even thought of myself. The only difference is that at SNU, I taught a much larger class. My class here is much smaller; one has 17, and one has eight, so it’s a much more intimate group. I can do more when the class is smaller, have deeper discussions, and get to know the students. I can have a roundtable and have more discussion-oriented classes which I’ve found to be much more rewarding.

Now that you are a faculty member for our Asian Studies (AS) major, what is your vision for the AS major in the future?

I’m trained as a pre-modernist, and I hope to bring to the program a firm historical grounding for our students so they can understand contemporary East Asia. You can’t understand contemporary East Asia without a substantial historical understanding of traditional East Asia. For example, to understand contemporary Korea, you need to understand the whole history, Japan, and further back, Korea’s relationship with China and how Korea imported some Chinese culture and selectively used and adapted it. I hope students will come into the program knowing that there are many things going on in this region, many opportunities for growth, new directions, and exciting developments. How do we make sense of that instead of being carried away into a murky future How do all these developments arise out of the historical context and the profound cultural memory of people for centuries, and how is that still part of the psychology of the people living here? I hope that students can see that value.

How has your transition to life and work in Songdo at UIC been compared to your previous experience in Korea?

The most challenging transition was when I first moved to Korea amid the pandemic. It was difficult; we barely went outdoors because of the restrictions. We relied on our church friends, even finding an apartment for us and helping us adjust. But now that we’re basically out of the pandemic, my kids have adjusted very well; they speak fluent Korean and talk to each other in Korean. I’m looking forward to learning Korean for my kids, and I look forward to learning more about the Songdo Community, building relationships, collaborating with my colleagues, and learning more about students, especially in the AS program.

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Interview Conducted by: Professor Howard KahmEdited by: Natasha Elyssa Gadjali (PSIR '22) & Pho Vu (IID '20.5)Spread Design by: Pho Vu (IID '20.5)