About Huijun Mai

Huijun Mai is an Assistant Professor in Medieval Chinese Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She teaches and writes on Classical Chinese literature, poetry and literary culture. Her research looks at the intersections of literature and the history of food and horticulture, seeking to give novel accounts of literary cultures across times and social groups by considering non-canonical sources. She is completing a book on the interwoven history of tasting and reading in medieval China.

Huijun Mai is an Assistant Professor in Medieval Chinese Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Huijun's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Huijun:

Thomas Kelly, "The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China" (Columbia UP, 2023)

December 23, 2023

The Inscription of Things

Thomas Kelly
Hosted by Huijun Mai

Why would an inkstone have a poem inscribed on it? Early modern Chinese writers did not limit themselves to working with brushes and ink, and their te…

Timothy Brook, "The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China" (Princeton UP, 2023)

November 3, 2023

The Price of Collapse

Timothy Brook
Hosted by Huijun Mai

In 1644, after close to three centuries of relative stability and prosperity, the Ming dynasty collapsed. Many historians attribute its demise to the …