Duncan Campbell

Senior Lecturer, School of Culture, History & Language

Email: duncan.campbell@anu.edu.au

Biographical statement

Since I arrived at the ANU in 2009 from New Zealand, I have been teaching a range of courses in aspects of traditional Chinese culture and thought, late imperial Chinese history, and classical Chinese language and literature.

I serve as the Reviews Editor for the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies.

Research interests

The bulk of my research concentrates on the literary and material culture of late imperial China, with particular reference to the late Ming-early Qing period (1550s-1660s). Within this field, one particular focus is a group of writers and scholars who were born in Shaoxing 紹興, Zhejiang Province and all of whom experienced this most cataclysmic of dynastic transitions. Specific areas of interest include: gardens and their literary and pictorial representation, letter writing and diaries, travel and travel writing, aspects of print culture, the history of the late imperial private library, and biographical and autobiographical writing. Methodologically, my work involves close philological engagement with a range of texts written in Classical Chinese and the translation of a number of these texts into English.

Key publications

• "Zhang Dai's Passionate Search for Orchid Pavilion", Script & Print: Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia & New Zealand, 29.1-4 (2005): 30-44
• "Transplanted Peculiarity: The Garden of the Master on the Fishing Nets", New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 9.1 (2007): 9-25
• "The Moral Status of the Book: Huang Zongxi in the Private Libraries of Late Imperial China", East Asian History, 32/33 (2006/2007): 1-24
• "Zheng Yuanxun's 'A Personal Record of My Garden of Reflections'", Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes, 29.4 (2009): 270-81