Paul Foster

Fall 2026 Office Hours TR 10:00 - 11:30 am and by appointment (or Zoom) -- email me for link!

Paul B. Foster received his Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Literatures from the Ohio State University. His specialty is the study of Lu Xun 鲁迅, the icon of Modern Chinese Literature. Dr. Foster is the author of Jin Yong's Martial Arts Fiction and the Kungfu Industrial Complex (Lexington Press, 2023), Ah Q Archaeology:  Lu Xun, Ah Q, Ah Q’s Progeny and the National Character Discourse in Twentieth-Century China  (Lexington Press, 2006), as well as a number of journal articles and conference papers. Dr. Foster's current research is on Chinese Sci-Fi, exploring Liu Cixin's Three Body Problem and researching the issues of posthumanism and dystopia in sci-fi.

Dr. Foster researches and teaches the spectrum of Chinese language courses related to his research. He enjoys introducing students to contemporary Chinese culture at the upper level through varied media, having created courses to teach language and culture through:

• Chinese Sci-Fi
• Kungfu/Martial Arts Fiction
• Strategy & the Art of War
• Kungfu & Wuxia Film
• Music & Pop Culture
• Lu Xun & Modern Chinese Literature

Promoting study abroad is a longstanding priority for Dr. Foster, who views this experience as a crucial part of students' overall education. Dr. Foster designed, developed and co-directed the University System of Georgia Summer Study in China (Nanjing and/or Yangzhou), and designed, developed, and alternately co-directs or coordinates GT School of Modern Languages' intensive summer Chinese language program in Shanghai and Qingdao, the China LBAT. Current pandemic and political conditions have put a hold on China LBAT for the forseeable future.

In addition, Dr. Foster was Co-principle Investigator for a Department of Education International Research and Studies (IRS) Instructional Materials Grant to develop “Advanced/Intermediate Language and Culture through Song. He is also an Associate of the China Research Center, an alliance of local scholars which provides cultural, economic, political and business research and information in Georgia and the Southeast. In addition, Dr. Foster is Editorial Board Member and Chief Editor for China Currents, the publication of the China Research Center. Moreover, he has served on numerous committees. Dr. Foster also sponsors numerous student groups, which include the Chinese Student Association, the Hong Kong Student Association, the GT Unicycling Club and others which dovetail with his interests in martial arts fiction, rock climbing (multi-day big walls in Yosemite, alpine routes, cragging throughout the US, Taiwan, and Japan), and ultra-endurance mountain biking, which also resemble learning Chinese in that they alll require dedication and practice, practice, practice. Dr. Foster was awarded the Ivan Allen College's E. Roe Stamps Excellence in Teaching Award for Junior Faculty for 2002/3.

Click on Links to My Publications (also in CV): 

• Jin Yong's Martial Arts Fiction and the Kungfu Industrial Complex, Lexington Books, 2023.
• “Chinese Sci-fi, Viruses, Politics: Three Dystopian Bodies,” May 27, 2021, China Currents Vol. 20, No. 21 (Spring 2021).
• “Jin Yong and the Kungfu Industrial Complex.” Chinese Literature Today 今日中国文学. Vol. 8, No. 2. (2019): 68-76. 
• "Hong Kong Literature: an Overview.” Ed. Ming Dong Gu. Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature. Ch. 46.  London & NY: Routledge Press, 2019. 656-668.
• “Xi Jinping’s Soft Power Martial Arts Cultural Trope,” June 10, 2016, China Currents Vol. 15, No. 2 (Spring 2016).
• “The Geopolitics of Kung Fu Film,” Reprint in China Currents Vol. 6, No. 2 (Spring 2007). Originally published in Foreign Policy In Focus (February 8, 2007). Silver City, NM & Washington, DC.
• Ah Q Archaeology:  Lu Xun, Ah Q, Ah Q’s Progeny and the National Character Discourse in Twentieth-Century China.   Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. 
• “Social Drama and Construction of the Ah Q Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Reading Strategy to ‘The True Story of Ah Q’ and Its Intertextual Derivations.” China Information  20.1 (Jan. 2006): 69-102.
•  “Ah Q Progeny – Post 1949 Creative Intersections with the Ah Q Discourse.”  Modern Chinese Literature and Culture  Vol. 16, No. 2 (Fall 2004): 184-234.
•  “Ah Q Genealogy:  Ah Q, Miss Ah Q, National Character and the Construction of the Ah Q Discourse.” Asian Studies Review Vol. 28, No. 3 (Sept. 2004): 243-266. 
•  “Jin Yong’s Linghu Chong Faces off against Lu Xun’s Ah Q:  Complements to the Construction of National Character.” Twentieth-Century China Vol. 30, No. 1 (Nov. 2004): 82-117. 
•  “A Language and Cultural Practicum Course in Nanjing:  Maximizing the Student’s Use of Chinese.”  Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad.  (Fall 2001): 121-128.
• “The Ironic Inflation of Chinese National Character:  Lu Xun’s International Reputation and Romain Rolland’s Critique of ‘The True Story of Ah Q’ and the Nobel Prize.”  Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring 2001):  140-168. 

Translations

• “Breaking Out of Ghost Pagoda: A Social Tragedy in Three Acts.” By Bai Wei. In The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama. Abridged edition. Ed. Xiaomei Chen. New York: Columbia UP, 2014. 95-156.
• “The Bygone Age of Ah Q.”  By Qian Xingcun.  Trs. with Sherry Mou.  In Modern Chinese Literary Thought:  Writings on Literature 1893-1945.  Ed. Kirk A. Denton.  Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996.  276-88.  Trans. of “Siqule de A Q shidai,” 1928.
• “My Opinions on Creativity.”  By Lu Yin.  Trs. with Sherry Mou.  In Modern Chinese Literary Thought:  Writings on Literature 1893-1945.  Ed. Kirk A. Denton.  Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996.  235-7.  Trans. of “Chuangzaode wo jian,” 1921.

Reviews

• Review of Luke White, Fighting without Fighting: Kung Fu Cinema’s Journey to the West. London, Reaktion Books, 2022. 294 pp. ISBN: 9781789145335. The Journal of Asian Studies, 83.2 (May 2024): 526-528.

• Review of Luke White, Legacies of the Drunken Master: Politics of the Body in Hong Kong Kung Fu Comedy Films. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2020. China Review International 26.1 & 2 (Spring 2021): 121-128.
• Review of John Christopher Hamm. The Unworthy Scholar from Pingjiang: Republican Era Martial Arts Fiction. New York, Columbia University Press, 2019. East Asian Publishing and Society, Volume 10 (2020): Issue 2 (Oct 2020). 205-218. 
• Film Review of Crazy Rich Asians [2018]. China Currents, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall 2018). China Research Center.
• Review of Carolyn T. Brown. Reading Lu Xun through Carl Jung.  Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2018. Reviewed by Paul B. Foster. MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July 2018).
• Review of Eileen J. Cheng & Kirk A. Denton, eds. Jottings under Lamplight: Lu Xun. Cambridge, MA & London, England: Harvard University Press, 2017.  China Review International 23.2 (Spring 2018): 151—58.
• Review of Haiyan Lee, The Stranger and the Chinese Moral Imagination by Haiyan Lee. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. 362 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8047-8591-4. Chinese Literature, Essays and Reviews (CLEAR), vol. 37 (December 2015): 221-224. 
• Review of Nicholas A. Kaldis, The Chinese Prose Poem: A Study of Lu Xun’s Wild Grass (Yecao). Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2015. ISBN 978-1-60497-863-6. 367pp. Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, Volume 10, Issue 3, 2016.  
• Review of Petrus Liu, Stateless Subjects: Chinese Martial Arts Literature and Postcolonial History. Ithaca: Cornell East Asia Series, 2011. pp. 264. ISBN: 978-1-933947-62-4. MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright August 2013).
• Review of Woman from Shanghai: Tales of Survival from a Chinese Labor Camp, by Yang, Xianhui. New York: Pantheon Books, 2009. pp. 320. ISBN: 978-0-307-37768-5. MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright January 2010).
• Review of John Christopher Hamm, Paper Swordsmen: Jin Yong and the Modern Chinese Martial Arts Novel. University of Hawai’i Press, 2005. 348pp. ISBN 0-8248-2763-5 (cloth). MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright January 2006).
• Review of Bonnie S. McDougall, Fictional Authors, Imaginary Audiences:  Modern Chinese Literature in the Twentieth Century.  China Review International Vol. 10, No. 2 (Fall 2003): 429-434.   
• Review of Wilt Idema and Lloyd Haft, A Guide to Chinese Literature.  Education About Asia, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring 1999): 52.
• Review of Yingjin Zhang, The City in Modern Chinese Literature and Film:  Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender.  China Review International.  (Fall 1997): 588-92.