章杲恆 Gaoheng Zhang is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is a humanities scholar of migration, mobilities, multiculturalism, media, rhetoric, ethics, and masculinity. His recent research seeks to provide a road map for analyzing cultural mobilities concerning contemporary Italy’s and Europe’s global networks with Asia, America, and Africa, which are created through migration, colonialism, exile, tourism, business travel, and other forms of human mobility.

Gaoheng is a leading cultural critic of Chinese migration to Italy, which has generated considerable debate in the Italian, Chinese migrant, and international media because of migrants’ economic clout. This is the subject of his first book, Migration and the Media: Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992-2012 (University of Toronto Press, 2019), which is the first detailed media and cultural study of the Chinese migration from both Italian and Chinese migrant perspectives, as well as one of the few book-length analyses of migration and culture. He has also published several journal articles and book chapters that address literary and cinematic depictions of Chinese migrants in Italian culture from the perspectives of gender, race, ethics, and genres. The research for the book and articles was supported by Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the Humanities (now the USC Society of Fellows) at the University of Southern California, and the monograph’s publication was funded by Awards to Scholarly Publications Program and The Schoff Publication Fund Award. 

His next two book projects provide in-depth analyses of cultural representations and dynamics pertaining to food and fashion mobilities across China and Italy that migrants and tourists helped initiate or deepen between the 1980s and 2010s. Both food and fashion mobilities have played an integral role in socio-cultural identity-making in each country. Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities is forthcoming from Fordham University Press in 2025, and “Unfolding Sartorial Stories: Italy-China Fashion Cultures on the Move” is under revision for Bloomsbury. He has received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for undertaking these and related projects. The two monographs are attached to a website that deploys the Chinese concept of 衣食住行 (clothing, food, residence, mobility) in structuring discussions about transnational Italian and Chinese material cultures: https://mobilitiesitalychina.com. Relatedly, with Valentina Pedone, Gaoheng also published an edited volume that foregrounds China-Italy cultural mobilities: Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy (Palgrave Macmillan 2023).

“Scrambles for East Africa: Public Perceptions and Cultural Debates between China, Western Europe, and East Africa” is a pilot study for a planned monograph in progress. The Belt and Road Initiative is considered China’s most ambitious development strategy and governance project. Unlike China’s earlier market reforms, the BRI intends to lay a foundation for Chinese leadership in international relations. While the empirical details of technological and economic change can be documented in other kinds of sources, the media becomes a nexus for the jockeying for global significance and reputation, especially through covering issues related to economic development and environment. By grounding this analysis in theories from mobilities and postcolonial studies, the project will help foster informed dialogues about the subject in academic and public debates. Gaoheng is the recipient of both the Jean Monnet Fellowship from the European University Institute and the UBC Killam Faculty Research Fellowship.

Gaoheng spearheaded and co-organized two conferences focused on Italy, China, and East Asia: “Italy and China: Centuries of Dialogue” (University of Toronto, April 2016) and “Italy and East Asia: Exchanges and Parallels” (Stony Brook University, October 2018). He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies (2014-Present), on the Advisory Board of “Critical Studies in Italian Migrations” book series at Fordham University Press, and on the Publications Committee of the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program for Canada’s Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (2017-20).

At UBC, he is a member of the executive committee of the Centre for Migration Studies, a member at the Centre for European Studies, and an affiliated faculty with the Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies program.

Before joining UBC, Gaoheng held positions as Assistant Professor of Italian Cinema at the University of Toronto and as a Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholar in the Humanities (now the USC Society of Fellows) at the University of Southern California. A Hangzhou native, he was educated at Beijing Foreign Studies University (B.A.) and at New York University (M.A., Ph.D.).

Interests

• Italian Studies
• Cultural Studies
• Migration Studies
• Mobility Studies
• Gender Studies
• Masculinity Studies
• Ethnic and Racial Studies
• Media and Film Studies
• Rhetoric and Communication Studies
• Ethics and Morality

Invited Stand-Alone Talks and Lectures

“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 (remote), 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

Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy (Palgrave Macmillan 2023), co-edited with Valentina Pedone.

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.

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

“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.

“Insegnare la lingua e la cultura italiane agli studenti di origine cinese in Nord America: nuove risorse didattiche per un approccio multiculturalista,” Cultura & Comunicazione, 6:9 (2016), pp. 23-25.

“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.

Peer-reviewed Book Chapters

“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-peer-reviewed 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.

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.)

Invited Media Essays
“Made in Italy by Chinese in Prato: The ‘Carrot and Stick’ Policy and Chinese Migrants in Italy,” China Policy Institute Blog, University of Nottingham, UK, October 22, 2015.

“Italy and China, Europe and East Asia: Centuries of Dialogue,” Corriere Canadese, April 5, 2016, p. 16.

Interviews

“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).

Film Reviews      

“Puoi baciare lo sposo by Alessandro Genovesi (2018),” gender/sexuality/italy, 7 (2020): 258-259.

“Caffè, by Cristian Bortone (2016),” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, 6/2 (2018), pp. 252-254.

“My Reincarnation, by Jennifer Fox (2011),” Italian American Review, 3/2 (2013), pp. 151-153.

Translation
“La Fuga/Escape” by Francesca Bellino, Journal of Italian Translation, VI:1&2 (2011), pp. 100-115.

Co-Edited Volumes

Ed. (With Jessica Goethals and Valerie McGuire) Power and Image in Early Modern Europe. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

Ed. (With Francesco Guardiani and Salvatore Bancheri) Italy and China: Centuries of Dialogue. Firenze: Franco Cesati Editore, 2017.

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.

Visiting Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures and Intercultural Studies, University of Florence, May 2018 and May 2019.

Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 2018.       

The Arts Undergraduate Research Award (AURA), University of British Columbia, 2017.

The International Work Learn Award, University of British Columbia, 2017.

UBC Hampton Fund Research Grant – New Faculty Award, 2016-18.

The Schoff Publication Fund Award, The University Seminars, Columbia University, 2016.

The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Grant, 2016.

Provost’s Postdoctoral Scholarship in the Humanities (now The USC Society of Fellows), University of Southern California, 2012-14.

Full scholarship from the Refresher Program for Teachers of Italian Abroad, University for Foreigners in Perugia, 2008.