Profile

Assistant Professor of English specialising in eighteenth-century English literature and Sino-Western cultural interpretation, with fourteen years of academic training in English literature in Britain. 

Educational Experience

2014 – 2018, PhD in English Literature, Durham University

2012 – 2013, MA in English Literature, Durham University

2008 – 2012, BA (Hons) in English Literature, University of St Andrews

Work Experience

2019 – present, Assistant Professor of English, Peking University 

Research Interests

Eighteenth-century English literature; Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-century English novels;

Comparative Literature (Sino-Western Cultural Interpretation);

Translation Strategies and Practice;

Historical development of Confucianism (Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, the School of Mind, and New Confucianism)

Teaching Courses

Independently Taught Courses:

Readings in English Prose (undergraduate)

The Novels of Jane Austen in Context (undergraduate)

Eighteenth-Century English Literature (undergraduate)

The Eighteenth-Century English Novels (postgraduate)

Jane Austen’s Literary Horizon (postgraduate) 

Selected Publications

1.Monograph

Mengmeng Yan, Foreignness and Selfhood: Sino-British Encounters in English Literature of the Eighteenth Century (Oxon: Routledge, 2022).

Cited in the bibliography of the 2024 scholarly edition of The Citizen of the World (Oliver Goldsmith), published by Cambridge University Press.

2.Translated Monograph

Chunsong Gan, A Concise History of Confucianism, trans. Mengmeng Yan (Singapore: Springer, 2025).

A Completed Project Output of the Chinese Academic Translation Project funded by the National Social Science Fund of China.

3.Articles

(1) Research-oriented:

1. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘Seeing and Being Seen in the Novels of Charlotte Bronte’, Foreign Literatures (Guowai Wenxue), 2023(3), 78-87.(Reprinted in Foreign Literature, Information Center for Social Sciences, Renmin University of China, 2024(3), 71-80.)

2. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘“The Chinese and we are pretty much alike”: Cultural Encounters in Oliver Goldsmith’s The Citizen of the World’, Foreign Literatures (Guowai Wenxue), 2022(2), 96-106.

3. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘The Various Representations of Distress in Sense and Sensibility’, Foreign Literature (Waiguo Wenxue), 2025(1), 49-57.

4. Yan, Mengmeng and Wu, Hao, ‘Reflection and Resonance of Self and the External World: Translation Strategies and Cultural Perspectives of A Concise History of Confucianism’, International Studies on Confucianism, 2025(1), 134-141. First author.

5. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘Rational Restraining of Emotion: Self-Control and Writing Principle in Jane Austen’ s Novels’, Study of Literature in English, Issue 13, 2025, 27-40.

6. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘The Performance of Feelings in Arthur Murphy’s The Orphan of China’, Studies in Chinese Classics, Issue 8 (2024), 204-217.

7. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘“All art is at once surface and symbol”: the relationship between art and life in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray’, China Reading Weekly, International Culture Section, 30th April 2025, Section 18. (Republished on the official website of the China Writers Association (www.chinawriter.com.cn), Literary Criticism Section, 14th May 2025.)

8. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘The Education of the Heart in Jane Austen’s Novels’, China Reading Weekly, International Culture Section, 4th Sep. 2024, Section 18. (Republished on Yunnan Net (www.yunnan.cn), Culture Section, 4th Sep. 2024.)

9. Yan, Mengmeng, ‘“There is no better means of instruction on China than letting China speak for herself”: Thomas Percy and Hau Kiou Choaan (1761)’, Exchanges: The Warwick Research Journal, 4/1 (2016), 68-85.

10.Yan, Mengmeng, ‘China in Eighteenth-Century English and Irish Literature: Representations and Tensions’, Postgraduate English, 30 (2015), .

(2) Teaching-oriented:

Yan, Mengmeng, ‘Instructional Design for “The Eighteenth-Century English Novel”’, in Instructional Design for Integrating Moral and Civic Education into Foreign Language and Literature Courses, ed. Shujing Li and Dan Wang (Beijing, Peking University Press, 2024), 138-142. 

Honors and Awards

1.Recipient, New Oriental Award for Early-Career Scholar Award – for translated monograph, presented by the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Peking University. (2025)

2.Recipient, New Oriental Award for Early-Career Scholar Award – for published monograph, presented by the School of Foreign Languages and Literature, Peking University. (2022)

3.Recipient, Outstanding Class Advisor Award, presented by Peking University. (2022)

4.Recipient, Outstanding Teaching Team Award –for teaching core course series entitled ‘Readings in English Prose’, presented by Peking University. (2021)

5.Recipient, Postgraduate Award, presented by the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (BSECS). (2016)