Xi Liu Ph.D. FHEA

Associate Professor

Dr. Xi LIU is an Associate Professor at the Dept. of China Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Her main research fields are Chinese literature and Chinese women's studies. Her research articles appeared in journals including Literary Review, Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, China Studies, Journal of Chinese Women's Studies, and Frontiers of Literary Studies in China. She has published two monographs on Chinese literary and gender studies and has co-edited one volume on cultural studies of contemporary Northeast China.

She has been teaching modules on Chinese literature, theatre, and film to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Currently as the principal supervisor, she is supervising two PhD students who work on contemporary Chinese literature. (No PhD recruitment plan for 2024-25)

ORCID ID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6095-5835


  • Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning Support in Higher Education, University of Liverpool, 2021
  • PhD, Comparative Literature, The University of Hong Kong 2013
  • MA, Chinese Language & Literature, Fudan University 2008
  • BA, Chinese Language & Literature, Nanjing University 2005


  • Associate Professor, Dept. of China Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University -2022 to present
  • Assistant Professor, Dept. of China Studies, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University - 2016 to 2022
  • Part-time Lecturer, Dept. of Comparative Literature, the University of Hong Kong - 2016
  • Project Supervisor for ”MA in Chinese Literature”, School of Arts and Social Sciences, Hong Kong Metropolitan University - 2014 to 2015
  • Research Associate, Dept. of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong - 2013 to 2015


  • Cultural and ethnographic studies of gender and class
  • Science, technology and subjectivity in literature
  • Socialist feminism, Post-Marxist feminism, Posthuman feminism
  • Feminist pedagogy and practices in Chinese higher education


  • Liu Xi, "Technology, reproduction and female subjectivity in contemporary Chinese science fiction", Under Review
  • Yu Xuying, Liu Xi. "Learning and Resistance: The Imaginaries of ocean and utopia late Qing Chinese science fiction", Under review
  • Danxue Zhou, Liu Xi "Spatial Disparity and Social Inequalities: Interrogating Urbanization in Post-2000s Chinese Science Fiction", Under Review
  • Penn Ip, Yu Zhang, Xi Liu.* "The Social Reproduction with Socialist Characteristics in Shanghai: Destitute and Disadvantaged Women (Pinkun Funü) and their Affective Lives in the Workers’ New Villages During the COVID-19 Pandemic”, Under Review
  • Troy Chen, Xianwen Kuang and Liu Xi.* 2023. Identity construction and meaning-making of female domestic workers in contemporary China: The roles of rural/urban divide, class and gender in everyday life. China Studies, 30(2):268-297. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi, Yu Xuying. 2023. New view of subjectivity and gender informed by new ontology: A Study of the genealogy of posthuman-feminism, Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 03:150-159. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi. 2022. Stories on Sexual Violence as “Thought Experiments”: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction as an Example. SFRA Review. 52(3):118-128.
  • Liu Xi. 2021. Post-structural Theories and Feminist Cultural Criticism in China: On the theorization of women's "subjectivity in the studies of Socialist China. Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 01:179-190..(In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi. 2021. Representing Women's Liberation in the '17 Years' Chinese Theatre. Journal of North University of China (Social Sciences Edition) 05:93-99. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi. 2020. Problematizing “New Women”: Counter Discourses to Sex Binarism and Essentialism in “May Fourth” Women’s Literature. Journal of Macao Polytechnic Institute (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition) 04:147-157. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi.2019. Science, Gender and Cyborg in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction: A Case Study of The Waste Tide]. Literary Review 03:215-223.(In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi. 2017. Perceptions of Women’s Liberation: A Study of Personal Narratives of Subaltern Women in Three Women’s Federations ’Publications,1949-1964. Journal of Chinese Women's Studies 06:58-71. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi, Hui Wang. 2017. How Do Subalterns Represent Themselves. Journal of China Women’s University, 06:36-43.(In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi 2017. Subaltern Females and Sexual Discourses in Three Contemporary Chinese Female-Authored Fictions), Journal of Shanxi Normal University (Social Sciences Edition), 2:99-106.. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi 2016 'Republican Lens: Gender, Visuality, and Experience in the Early Chinese Periodical Press', China Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Greater China. 41(1):357.
  • Liu Xi 2013. A Study of the stories on Baomu in contemporary discourses of modernity. Journal of Chinese Women's Studies, 4:95-102. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi 2012. Female Subjectivity in Mao's Era: From Women by Wei Junyi. Journal of Chinese Women's Studies. 4:75-81. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi 2012 'The Representation of Rural Migrant Women and the Discourse of Modernity in Contemporary China----A Study of Zhang Kangkang's Novel Zhima', Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, vol. , no. 4, pp. 511-525
  • Liu Xi 2012. 'Wisdom in Mu Dan's poetry, Theory Horizon, 4:125-127. (In Chinese)
  • Liu Xi, 2007. May Fourth Youth literature in the perspective of cultural transformation, Theory Horizon, 11:202-203. (In Chinese)


  • Penn Ip, Zhang Yu, Liu Xi, Gendering Ordinariness: Everyday Lives of Grassroots Women in Socialist Workers’ New Villages in Shanghai, London: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming
  • Zhen Troy Chen, Jiawen Han, Xianwen Kuang, Xi Liu, eds., 2023, Identity, Space, and Everyday Life in Contemporary Northeast China. London:Palgrave Macmillan. Funded by XJTLU TDF and Dept. of China Studies. ISBN: 978-9819945290
  • Liu Xi, 2021, 《话语内外:百年中国文学中的性别再现和主体塑造》(Discourse and Beyond: Gender Representation and Subject Construction in 100 Years of Chinese Literature), Nanjing University Press.. Funded by XJTLU RDF and AEF. ISBN:978-7-305-25211-2
  • Penn Ip, Zhang Yu, Liu Xi, 2021, 《海上凡花:上海工人新村妇女日常生活》(The Ordinary Women: Qualitative Research on Workers’ New Villages in Shanghai), Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, Funded by GenUrb (Urbanization, Gender, and the Global South: A Transformative Knowledge Network), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada; Also funded by 2021 Shanghai Cultural Development Fund. ISBN:978-7-5321-8205-3
  • Liu Xi, “The Languages of Liberation”: Women’s Autobiographical Narratives in Early Maoist China:1949-1964 (manuscript in preparation)


  • Adeline Johns-Putra, Xi Liu, Loredana Cesarino, Guohong Mai, and Yue Zhou, "Whose World? Whose World Literature? Looking for Climate Fiction in China ", Literature and the Work of Universality, De Gruyter, forthcoming
  • Danxue Zhou, Liu Xi "Counter-discourses to intersectional inequalities and urban modernity: Representing Subaltern Women in Post-2000s Chinese Science Fiction", in Penn Ip ed., Feminist Explorations of Urban China, Routledge. forthcoming
  • Liu, Xi. 2023, “The Reconfigured Narratives of Class and Gender in Representing Social Changes: From the Full-Length Novel to the Television Series of A Lifelong Journey”, In Chen. T.C., Han, J., Kuang, X. & Liu, X (Eds.) Identity, Space, and Everyday Life in Contemporary Northeast China. Palgrave Macmillan: London. 247-271.
  • Zhen Troy Chen, Jiawen Han, Xianwen Kuang, Xi Liu, 2023 “Introduction”, In Chen. T.C., Han, J., Kuang, X. & Liu, X (Eds.) Identity, Space, and Everyday Life in Contemporary Northeast China. Palgrave Macmillan: London. 1-15
  • 刘希 2023 “理论/批评·性别“,《科幻导论》,李广益主编,重庆大学出版社,第73-81页
  • 刘希 2022 “后结构理论与中国女性主义批评 ——以社会主义文化研究中的妇女‘主体性‘为中心”,《纵深与超越:后理论与比较文学跨学科研究》,江玉琴主编,中山大学出版社,第102-118页
  • Liu Xi, 2022 "Tibetan stories with transcultural perspectives and experimental styles: Chinese Avant-garde fictions as example" in Daria Berg & Giorgio Strafella (eds) China's Avant-Garde: 1978-2018, Routledge, 80-97
  • Zhou Yue, Liu Xi, 2022, "Representing Environmental Issues in Post-1990s Chinese Science Fiction: Technological Imaginary and Ecological Concerns" in Ecocriticism and Chinese Literature Imagined Landscapes and Real Lived Spaces, Riccardo Moratto, Nicoletta Pesaro, Di-kai Chao (eds), Routledge, pp.98-112
  • 刘希 2022 “社会学的想象力:当代中国科幻的一种读法”,《信睿周报》(The Thinker) 2022年9月1日第81期,8-11
  • 刘希 2020 "当代中国科幻中的科技、性别和赛博格:以《荒潮》为例“", 《微文化研究第二辑:性别之惑》,滕威主编,上海书店出版社,第128-149页;2023,《地火行天:中国科幻研究十年精选(2011-2020)》,李广益主编,重庆大学出版社
  • Liu, Xi 2014, "The Representation of Chinese Rural Migrant Women and the Post-Mao Modernity Discourses".in Rošker, Jana S., and Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik (eds) Modernisation of Chinese Culture: Continuity and Change, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 215-230 (originally published in Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 2012)


  • *Workshop/Panel Organized:
  • Organizer of the 2023 XIPUI Workshop on "Gender Equality and Urban Development" (November, 2023)
  • Organizer of the "2022 Suzhou Workshop on Urban and Gender Studies" (July, 2022)
  • Organizer and Chair of the panel "Between Tradition and Modernity: On the International Communication of Chinese Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Era" for IAMCR Pre-Conference (July, 2022)
  • Organizer and Chair of the Panel “The Crises of Human World and Thought Experiments in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction” for Asian Futurisms ,2021 (May, 2022)
  • Co-organizer of the workshop on "Cultural Production in Maoist China", (November 2021)
  • Co-organizer of the online workshop on "Women and Urbanization in China: Building a transformative knowledge network", (August, 2021)


  • *Principal Investigator:
  • 2021-2023 XJTLU Research Development Fund, PI for the project "A History of Climate and Literature: A Comparison of Chinese and Western Texts" (Completed)
  • 2021-2023 XJTLU Teaching Development Fund, PI for the Project "Enhancing Research-Led Teaching & Learning for Postgraduate Research Students through Interdisciplinary Research"(Completed)
  • 2020-2023 XJTLU Research Development Fund, PI for the project “Humanism and Post-humanism in Post-1990s Chinese Science Fiction” (Completed)
  • 2019 XJTLU SURF, PI for the project "Social Criticism in Post-1990s Chinese Science Fiction"
  • *Co-PI:
  • 2021 Shanghai Cultural Development Fund (for book publication) Project: Yu Zhang, Penn Ip, Xi Liu. The Ordinary Women: Qualitative Research on Workers’ New Villages in Shanghai, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House.
  • *Co-Investigator:
  • 2021 XJTLU SURF, CI for the project "Portrayal of Chinese maid in the media: A reflection of the social tensions between domestic workers and the rising middle class in China"
  • 2020 Xipu Think Tank Fund, CI for the project"The Continuity of Wu Culture and the Cultural Soft Power of Suzhou"
  • 2018-2021 XJTLU Research Development Fund, CI for the project "Women’s political participation in rural China: Agency and power redistribution”
  • *Team member:
  • 2019 Jiangsu Philosophy and Social Science Research Funding Program. Team member for the project: "Women's Political Participation in Rural China"


  • 2023-present Program Director of MA China Studies
  • 2021-present HSS School Alumni Officer
  • 2020-present HSS representative of University's Fees Scholarships and Academic Bursaries Sub-Committee
  • 2018-2021 Academic Advisor for Diversity Association
  • 2017-present Year 4 Coordinator, Work Placement Officer, Alumni officer
  • 2016-18 Research Seminar Coordinator, HSS representative of Student Experience Committee
  • 2016-20 Library Affairs Committee


  • PHD SUPERVISION:
  • PhD Supervision (on-going): Ms. Yue Zhou, "The Technological Fix in Contemporary Ecology-themed Science Fiction"
  • PhD Supervision (on-going): Ms. Danxue Zhou, "Social Space in Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction"
  • Coordinator of PhD Reading Group on "Cultural Studies: Representation, Discourse and Ideology" (2020-present)


  • Module Leader:
  • CCS409 China Studies Dissertation (PG, 2020-present)
  • CCS402 Contemporary Chinese Literature and Film (PG, 2019-present)
  • CCS307 Chinese Theatre and Performance (UG, 2017-present)
  • CCS206 Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature (UG, 2017-present)
  • Module Teacher:
  • CCS004 Introduction to China Studies (UG, 2021-present)
  • CCS901 Understanding China (UG&PG, 2017-present)
  • CCS305 Final Year Project (UG, 2018-present)
  • COM207 Chinese Cinema (UG, 2018)
  • LAN102: Critical Thinking: The Self and The World (UG, 2017)
  • CCS002 China and the world (UG, 2016)
  • CCS101 Chinese Civilization: Thinkers and Ideas (UG, 2016)


  • Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA), UK
  • Adjunct Senior Research Fellow, the Xipu Think Tank
  • Chinese Sociological Association, Sub-committee of Women's and Gender Studies
  • Jiangsu Women's Studies Association
  • Hong Kong Sociological Association
Xi Liu