Peter Tsung Kei Wong 王棕琦, B.A., M.Phil., CUHK, Ph.D., Princeton

Presidential Assistant Professor, Department of Chinese and History, City University of Hong Kong

Junior Research Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge

Peter.Wong@cityu.edu.hk

Education

Princeton University

Ph.D. in East Asian Studies. May 2025

      Dissertation: The Unlikely Birth of the First Big Book in China, 294 pp.

Committee: Martin Kern (adviser), Anthony Grafton (co-adviser), Trenton Wilson, Wai-yee Li (Harvard)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong

M.Phil. in Chinese Language and Literature. 2019

      Thesis:《淮南子》篇章結構考 [On the Compositional Structure of the Huainanzi], 133 pp.

Supervisor: Ho Che Wah 何志華, Choh-Ming Li Professor of Chinese Language and Literature

B.A. (First Class Honours) in Chinese Language and Literature. New Asia College. 2016

Research and Teaching Interests

Early Chinese Literary, Intellectual, and Political History

History of Reading and of Books

History of Universities

History of Science and of Philology

Current Book Projects

  • The Big Book Theory: The Unlikely Rise of Long Books and Its Consequences in Ancient China.

  • A Tale of Two Rival Kingdoms: Localizing Early Chinese Book Production and Classical Learning.

  • Beyond Confucius: How a Usurper Reinvented the Classical Tradition and Political Culture of China.

Publications

In Preparation

  • “The Poetics of Philosophy in the Huainanzi,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Huainanzi, ed. David Chai and James D. Sellmann. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

  • Defamiliarizing Sima Qian’s Big Book Experiment in Historiography: Materiality, Cost, Collaboration, and Kingly Ambition

  • “Text Segmentation as a Philosophical Problem: Liu An and the Formation of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi”

  • “Liu De and the Formation of Zuozhuan”

Forthcoming

  • “Huainanzi.” In The Oxford Handbook of Daoism, ed. James Miller, Robin Wang, and Jingcheng Xu. New York: Oxford University Press.  

  • Review of Robert L. Chard, Recovering Confucian Authority: The Field of Ritual Learning in Early Imperial China 9 to 316 CE, Journal of the American Society for Premodern Asia [Formerly Journal of the American Oriental Society] 147.1 (2027).

  • 從《史記》的字數說起 [The Word Count Expression in Shiji 130 and Its Implications] , Newsletter of Tin Ka Ping Centre of Chinese Culture 田家炳中華文化中心通訊 (2027.3).

2026

  • “Was It Easy to Create the First Big Bamboo Book?” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Lüshi Chunqiu 吕氏春秋: Political Thought, Metaphysics, and the Ethics of Leadership in Ancient China, ed. Marcin Jacoby and James D. Sellmann. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. 

2024

2022

2021

Awards and Honors (Selection)

Presentations

  • “239 BCE: A New Beginning of the Chinese Classical Tradition.” China Research Seminar, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, October 2026.

  • “The Unlikely Birth of the First Big Bamboo Book in Ancient China.” Cambridge Bibliographical Society, May 6, 2026.

  • “文本秩序的建立與傳承：《說苑》結構承襲《淮南》考”. 滬港學者古代文學研討會——中國文史傳統下的風景與秩序, City University of Hong Kong and Fudan University, November 15, 2025.

  • “廣「因聲求義」說 —— 以《淮南子》的押韻模式及韻律為討論中心”. 多元視角下訓詁學的傳承與創新國際學術研討會, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, November 11, 2025.

  • “從劉安到劉向：《說苑》結構承襲《淮南》考.” 經典的詮釋與傳播國際學術研討會, [International Conference on the Interpretation and Transmission of Chinese Classics], Department of Chinese Language and Literature, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, May 29, 2025.

  • “The Unlikely Rise of the Big Book in Early China, 239–26 BCE.” East Asian Studies Colloquium Series, Princeton University, November 6, 2024.

  • “From Liu An to Liu Xiang.” Sixth Ph.D. Student and Young Scholar Workshop: “First Books in the Ancient World,” International Center for the Study of Ancient Text Cultures, Renmin University of China, August 26, 2024. 

  • “From Failure to Reinvention: The Cross-Referencing System of the First Chinese Big Book.” Textual Culture Workshop: “Ink in One’s Veins—Mapping the World of Texts in Early and Medieval China,” Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, March 14 2024.

  • “古代中國的詩歌表演與哲學實踐” [Textual Performance and Philosophical Praxis in Ancient China]. 語境化文學研究青年研討會 [Young Scholars Conference on Contextualized Literary Studies], School of International Chinese Studies, East China Normal University 華東師範大學國際漢語文化學院, November 25, 2023.

  • "Beyond Confucius: How Wang Mang Reinvented the Chinese Classical Tradition." The Society for the Study of Early China 10th Annual Conference. June 2022. 

  • "Reading Huainanzi, Becoming Xunzi: Reading, Intertextuality, and Praxis in Early China." The Annual Conference of Association for Asian Studies (AAS) 2021, Virtual Meeting, March 2021. 

Teaching

City University of Hong Kong

-        Fall: CAH 3132 Chinese Philology 中國語文學; CAH 5707 Classical Chinese Philology 中國古代語文學

-        Spring: CAH 3131 Classical Chinese 古代漢語; CAH 2105 Selected Readings in Classical Chinese Essays 歷代文選

Princeton University (Preceptor)

-        EAS 279 / HIS 276: The Qin Dynasty and the Beginnings of Empire in China (2024 Spring)

The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Tutor)

-        Hanshu 漢書 (2017 Spring)

-        Zhuangzi 莊子 (2017 Fall)

Manuscript Reviews

  • Early China (Cambridge University Press)

  • Philosophy East and West (University of Hawai'i Press)

  • Religions (MDPI)