Critical | Creative | Caring

Hi, I am Mengqi An

Welcome, friend. I am glad you are here.

My name is Mengqi An 安梦琪, and I also go by Mercy. I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Thought and Literature at Johns Hopkins University, with a research fellowship at the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.I am a scholar and educator specializing in modern Chinese literature, Sino-Russian comparative studies, environmental humanities, and gender studies. Broadly, my research explores literary responses to modernity through transnational and multispecies lenses. My book project, tentatively titled Ecologizing Modernism: Writing with the Nonhuman in Manchuria, investigates the interplay between nonhuman environments and modernist literary forms in Chinese- and Russian-language works set in early 20th-century Manchuria.

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Teaching is an art of connection

Teaching

Teaching is more than the transmission of knowledge; it is an art of connection. Students learn best when they feel connected—to the course content, to me as their instructor, and to one another. In my practice of teaching as connecting, I cultivate three core values: critical thinking, creativity, and care—essential qualities that students can carry into any profession.At Johns Hopkins University, I have taught broadly across Sinophone, Russophone, and Japanophone literatures and cultures. My current teaching interests include Chinese literature and culture, Russian literature, environmental humanities, comparative literary studies, and gender studies. A strong advocate for language proficiency and multilingualism, I have also developed curricula for college writing and Chinese language instruction.Click on a course title below to view sample syllabi:

I'm happy to provide my full teaching portfolio upon request.
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literature | modernity | nonhuman

Researching

My research develops around an overarching curiosity about how literature responds to modernity—and a theoretical and methodological imperative to approach this question through transnational and multispecies lenses.My current book project, Ecologizing Modernism, takes Manchuria—a critical borderland of modern East Asia—as a site of confluencing human-nonhuman interactions. Reading Xiao Hong, Duanmu Hongliang, and Yi Chi alongside Nikolai Baikov, Vladimir Arsenyev, and Mikhail Prishvin, I argue that Chinese xiangtu writers and Russian writer-naturalists engaged in conscious, interrelated efforts to forge ethical relations with the nonhuman world. Informed by modern discourses on nature and shaped by the material realities of colonialism, their writings confront the intertwined precarity of both environment and humanity. In joining a cross-species response to a shared crisis, the nonhuman Other disrupts commonly received colonial-resistance binaries and co-authors the transnational literary landscape.I am developing a second book project which focuses on transnational literature by women from East Asia and Russia to explore the intricate relationships among gender, the nonhuman, and modernity.

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communicating | collaborating | co-being

Connecting

I warmly welcome new connections for collaboration, publication, teaching, and mentoring. I'm happy to provide an up-to-date CV, teaching portfolio, or reference contacts upon request.If you'd like to get in touch, the best way to reach me is at [email protected].

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little corner of the internet. I look forward to getting to know you, too.
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