章杲恆 Gaoheng Zhang I am an Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia. My scholarship analyzes cultural mobilities from within contemporary Italy’s and Western Europe’s global networks with Asia, America, and Africa. I apply multi-lingual, multi-perspectival, and multi-sited methods to my case studies. My intellectual project is focused on transculturality and dialogism.

I published the first detailed media and cultural study of contemporary Chinese migration to Italy from both Italian and Chinese migrant perspectives: Migration and the Media: Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992-2012 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2019). My next two monographs provide the first book-length scholarly inquiries into the well-known food and fashion cultures between Italy and China. In Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2025), I analyze food-related representations of labor migrants and culinary tourists from the 1980s through the 2010s and argue for their centrality in Chinese and Italian socio-cultural identity-making. Fashion Communications Between Italy and China: Unfolding a Sartorial Relationship (London: Bloomsbury, 2025) addresses the cultural dynamics of ready-to-wear and fast fashion—the two most influential trends in today’s fashion world—in the China-Italy context. I have recently completed a book manuscript titled: “China’s Little Italies and Italy’s Chinatowns” (under review in 2026), which inquires into diverse Italy-China spatial stories and modes of living through the lens of autoethnography.

These books articulate my desire to use the Chinese concept of 衣食住行 (yi shi zhu xing, or clothing, food, residence, mobility) in framing analyses of transnational Italian and Chinese material cultures alongside theories and methods originating from the Western tradition. https://mobilitiesitalychina.arts.ubc.ca/ provides accessible explanations on and examples of this Chinese life philosophy in the context of Italy-China cultural relations.

As a co-editor, I have published volumes that examine China-Italy cultural contact over several decades in the modern and contemporary periods. Valentina Pedone and I curated the first scholarly volume that foregrounds mobilities in analyzing China-Italy cultural exchanges: Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy (Cham: Springer; Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). Expanding this subject, Valentina and I are under contract to co-edit The Handbook on Modern China-Italy Relations (Leiden: Brill, under review in 2026). My scholarship also expands to include topics on Italy’s relationships with other Asian countries, having co-authored articles and co-organized conferences about them.

My current work in progress is titled “Scrambles for East Africa: Media and Cultural Debates between China, Western Europe, and East Africa.” The monograph will highlight the economic, military, and cultural ties that China, as well as former East African colonizers Britain, Italy, and France, have created with Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Djibouti. In specific, the project analyzes the tension between economic development and the environment in relevant media and cultural debates about migration, tourism, food (agriculture), and the clothing sector in the African region.

I am the recipient of highly coveted fellowships, grants, and prizes from UBC, Canada, the United States, and the European Union: the UBC Killam Faculty Research Prize; the UBC Killam Faculty Research Fellowship; a SSHRC Insight Grant; a SSHRC Insight Development Grant; a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholarship in the Humanities at the University of Southern California (now the USC Society of Fellows in the Humanities); a MacCracken Doctoral Fellowship at New York University; and a Jean Monnet Fellowship from the European University Institute.

At UBC, I serve on the advisory board of Green College. I am affiliated with the Centre for European Studies and with the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program.

I regularly teach and lecture on Italian food cultures, fashion cultures, mafia movies, gender and sexuality, pandemic literature, and (post-)colonial cultures.

Interests

• Italian Studies
• Cultural Studies
• Migration and Mobility Studies
• Food Studies
• Fashion Studies
• Gender Studies

Selected Invited Stand-Alone Talks and Lectures

“Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities,” Ohio State University, 2025.

“Italian Ready-to-wear through China: Rome–Beijing and Milan–Shanghai,” The Graduate Center at the City University of New York, 2024.

“Italy’s Chinese Migrant Fast Fashion in Contemporary Artworks,” keynote address, The Calandra Italian American Institute, City University of New York, 2023.

“Dogmeat, Chop Suey, and “Mozzarella Gialla”: Communicating Chinese Migrant Alimentary Stereotypes in Italian Popular Culture,” Asian American Studies Program, Purdue University, 2023.

“Italy’s Chinese Migrant Fast Fashion in the Arts,” Monash Prato – Monash University, 2022.

“Dogmeat, Chop Suey, and “Mozzarella Gialla”: Communicating Chinese Migrant Alimentary Stereotypes in Italian Popular Culture,” Yale University, 2022.

“Chinese Migrant Culinary Culture in Italy,” Pennsylvania State University, 2022.

“What ‘Italian Cuisine’ Means in China: A Media and Cultural Perspective,” Centre for European Studies, UBC, 2022.

“Issues of Orientalism and Fashion in the 21st Century: Fascination, Approximation or Appropriation?,” New York University Florence, 2022.

“Italy’s Chinese Migrant Fast Fashion in the Arts,” Wellesley College, 2021 and Georgetown University, 2022.

“Covid-19 and Anti-Chinese Racism in Italy,” Italian Canadians for Black Lives, 2021.

“Migration and the Media: Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992-2012,” Johns Hopkins University, 2020.

“Made in Italy by Chinese Migrants,” ElderCollege Delta, British Columbia, 2019.

“Chinese Food Cultures in Italy,” University of California, Irvine, 2019.

“Media Framings of Made in Italy Fast Fashion by Prato’s Chinese Migrants,” University of California, Irvine, 2019

“The Chinaman and the cinesina: Gendering Chinese Migrants in Italian Culture,” University of Florence, 2018.

“Made in Italy or Made in China? Chinese-Italian Cultural Identities in the Age of Migration and Globalization,” Villa La Pietra, New York University in Florence, 2018.

“Made in Italy or Made in China?” University College Cork, 2017 and The Dante Alighieri Society of British Columbia, 2017.

“I cinesi che non muoiono mai. Viaggio tra film, libri e mass media, tra luoghi comuni e (s)commode verità a proposito dell’immigrazione cinese in Italia,” Biblioteca Dergano-Bovisa, Milan, Italy, 2017.

“Recent Italian-Chinese Cultural Relations,” The Center for Italian Studies, Stony Brook University, 2016.

“Italian Cinema Looks East,” Department of Italian Language and Literature, Smith College, 2016.

“Contemporary Chinese Immigration to Italy: Encounters and Representations,” University Seminar, Studies in Modern Italy, Columbia University, 2013.

Books

Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (New York: Fordham University Press, 2025).

Fashion Communications Between Italy and China: Unfolding a Sartorial Relationship (London: Bloomsbury, 2025).

Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy (Palgrave Macmillan 2024), co-edited with Valentina Pedone.

Reviewed by Modern Language Review, Annali d’Italianistica, Associazione Insegnanti Italiani di Lingua Italiana in Cina.

Migration and the Media: Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992-2012 (University of Toronto Press, 2019).

Reviewed by Journal of Asian Studies, The China Quarterly, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Modern Italy, Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Forum Italicum, LEA: Lingue e Letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente.

Main Refereed Journal Articles

“Dis-orienting in China, Re-orienting in the Himalayas: Tiziano Terzani’s Travel Literature through Asia.” Modern Language Notes (MLN), Vol. 141, No. 1 (2026): 203-226.

“International Students’ Cultural Engagement through Constructing Distance or Proximity.” With Anne-Cécile Delaisse (first author). Mobilities, published online in May 2024.

“Federico Fellini’s 2020 Centennial Screenings in South Korea, Japan, and China.” With Hiju Kim and Hiromi Kaneda. Italian Studies in Southern Africa/Studi d’Italianistica nell’Africa Australe, Vol. 35 No. 1 (2022), 165-203.

“Introduction/Introduzione: Diversity, Decolonisation, and Italian Studies.” With Simone Brioni, Marie Orton, and Graziella Parati. Italian Studies in Southern Africa/Studi d’Italianistica nell’Africa Australe, Vol. 35 No. 1 (2022), 1-28.

“Frames and agendas in Italian films about Chinese migrants.” LEA – Lingue e letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente, 8 (2019), pp. 123-137.

“The Chinaman and the cinesina: Gendering Chinese migrants in Italian novels.” Journal of Romance Studies, 19/1 (2019), pp. 69-97.

“Documentary films on migrations in Italy: characteristics and ethics.” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, 6/1 (2018), pp. 3-14.

“Chinese Migrants, Morality, and Film Ethics in Italian Cinema.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 22/3 (2017), pp. 385-404.

“Il razzismo anti-cinese nella stampa italiana e la reazione della stampa migrante cinese: il caso della rivolta della Chinatown milanese,” Studi culturali, 2/2016 (2016), pp. 195-208.

“Contemporary Italian Novels on Chinese Immigration to Italy,” California Italian Studies Journal, 4:2 (2014), pp. 1-38.

“The Protest in Milan’s Chinatown and the Chinese Immigrants in Italy in the Media (2007-9),” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, 1:1 (2013), pp. 21-37.

“Italian Male Travelers at the Borderline: Masculinities and Liminal Spaces in Lamerica and Il ladro di bambini by Gianni Amelio,” The Italianist (Film Issue) 32 (2012), pp. 238-55.

Refereed Invited Book Chapters

“Teaching Migration through Mobilities.”In Teaching Migration in Literature, Film, and Media, edited by Masha Salazkina and Yumna Siddiqi, pp. 49-59. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2025.

“Contemporary Popular Media and Cultural Studies of Chinese Migrations to Italy.” In Handbook of Chinese Migration to Europe, edited by Mette Thunø and Wang Simeng, pp. 669-695. Leiden: Brill, 2025.

“‘Women with Big Breasts and Wide Hips’: Federico Fellini’s Cinema in Chinese Media Essays.” In Federico Fellini: Centenary Essays, edited by Marco Malvestio, Jessica Whitehead, and Alberto Zambenedetti, pp. 358-370. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2025.

“Mobility, Architecture, Chronotopes: Tianjin’s Italian Concession, the 1930s,” in Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy, edited by Valentina Pedone and Gaoheng Zhang, pp. 113-135. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

“Chinese Migrants and the ʻChinese Mafia’ in Contemporary Italian Culture,” in Transcending Borders: Selected Papers in East Asian Studies, edited by Valentina Pedone and Sagiyama Ikuko, pp. 67-86. Firenze: Firenze University Press, 2016.

“Comedy Film and Immigration to Italy: Reading Masculinity, Hybridity, and Satire in Lezioni di cioccolato (2007), Questa notte è ancora nostra (2008), and Into Paradiso (2010),” in The Cinemas of Italian Migration: European and Transatlantic Narratives, edited by Sabine Schrader and Daniel Winkler, pp. 263-279. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013.

“The Three Riddles in Puccini’s Turandot: Masculinity, Empire, and Orientalism,” in Der musikalisch modellierte Mann: Interkulturelle und interdisziplinäre Männlichkeitsstudien zur Oper und Literatur des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, edited by Ester Saletta and Barbara Hindinger, pp. 397-416. Vienna: Praesens, 2012.

Non-refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters

“‘衣食住行 (Clothing, Food, Residence, and Mobility)’ in Scholarly Practices of Transnational Italian Studies,” in “Critical Issues in Transnational Italian Studies,” Special Issue of Forum Italicum, edited by Serena Bassi, Loredana Polezzi, and Giulia Riccò, May 2023.

“From Roots to Routes: Italian Studies Between China and Italy via North America” in Diversity in Italian Studies, edited by Siân Gibby and Anthony Julian Tamburri, pp. 193-98. New York: John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 2021.

Edited Journal Issue
“Documentary Films on Migrations in Italy”. Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, 6/1 (2018), pp. 3-122.

Website

Cultural Mobilities Between Italy and China (co-created with Jennifer Lau, Alexandra Chipperfield, and Fei Han), 2021 and 2024.

Exhibitions
“Global Routes: China, Italy, Toronto” (co-curated with Paolo Frascà and Jennifer Lau), an exhibition at the John M. Kelly Library at the University of Toronto (May-June, 2016), at the Carrier Gallery at Columbus Centre in Toronto (July, 2016), and at UBC Robson Square. (Funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, 2016.)

Interviews

Podcast on Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities. New Books Network, January 31, 2026 (interviewed by Miranda Melcher).

“A Century After Its Founding, Milan’s Chinatown Faces an Uncertain Future.” The World of Chinese, December 10, 2025 (Interviewed and cited by Anson Zong-Liscum).

“Yale Italian Studies promotes cross-cultural connections at speaker event.” Yale Daily News, October 13, 2022 (interviewed by Ophelia He).

“Movement and Mobility – a European Perspective,” The Source, November 7-21, 2017 (Interviewed and cited by Jake McGrail).

“Tra vecchi stereotipi e nuove abitudini inizia l’anno del serpente nelle Chinatown italiane,” Huffington Post Italia, January 30, 2013 (Interviewed and cited by Francesca Bellino).

Main grants, fellowships, and prizes:

UBC Killam Faculty Research Prize, 2026.

SSHRC Insight Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Government of Canada, 2025-2029.

Jean Monnet Fellowship, European University Institute, 2022-2023.

UBC Killam Faculty Research Fellowship/Killam Laureate, The Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Fund for Advanced Studies, 2022-2023.

SSHRC Insight Development Grant, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Government of Canada, 2018-2020.   

Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholarship in the Humanities (now The USC Society of Fellows), University of Southern California, 2012-2014.

MacCracken Doctoral Fellowship, New York University, 2003-2010.