JunProf. Dr. Jessica Imbach

Contact Information:

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg    
Institut für Sinologie
Erbprinzenstraße 12, 4. OG
79098 Freiburg, Germany

Office room no. 04.003

Phone:  +49 761 20396748

E-Mail: jessica.imbach[at]aoi.uzh.ch (vorübergehend)

Jessica Imbach’s research and teaching focuses on modern and contemporary Chinese literature, narrative theory, digital media, science and technology studies, and environmental humanities. Her current research project examines the aesthetics and politics of genre fiction in China, focusing in particular on science fiction.

Curriculum vitae:

since 04/2024                                                                                                                         Junior Professor Sinology/contemporary China, University of Freiburg

05/2017 – 02/2024                                                                                                              Postdoc and Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Zurich

09/2020 – 11/2020                                                                                                                Research fellow at the European Institute of Chinese Studies, Paris

24/03/2017                                                                                                                               PhD in Chinese Studies (summa cum laude), University of Zurich, awarded the prize for best dissertation of 2017/2018 at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Zurich

11/2015 – 10/2016                                                                                                                   Fully funded PhD scholarship from the University of Zurich

01/2014 – 05/2014                                                                                                                Visiting Scholar, Shanghai University

04/2012 – 10/2015                                                                                                                   Fully funded PhD scholarship from the Swiss National Science Foundation

02/2011 – 03/2012                                                                                                              Lecturer in Chinese Studies, University of Zurich

2010                                                                                                                                      Master of Arts in Chinese Studies, General Linguistics and Modern History, University of Zurich

Grants, Awards, and Distinctions:

2023                                                                                                                                        FAN-Award of the University of Zurich for early career researchers in the category “Humanities and Social Sciences”

2020                                                                                                                                        GRC-Grant (UZH) for the Workshop: Wired China: Digital Media and Online Culture

2018                                                                                                                                     annual dissertation award of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich

11/2015 – 10/2016                                                                                                              research grant, University of Zurich

04/2012 – 10/2015                                                                                                                 Marie Heim-Vögtlin fellowship of the Swiss National Science Foundation

2014                                                                                                                                       travel and conference grant, University of Queensland, Brisbane

2009                                                                                                                                           1st prize in the Goethe Institute Shanghai literary translation contest

09/2004 – 08/2005                                                                                                             Chinese Government Scholarship, Beijing Language and Culture University

Selected recent publications:

- Digital China: Creativity and Community in the Sinocybersphere. Amsterdam University Press, 2024, open access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.13049278

- “Liu Cixin’s China 2185, Digital Futurism, and the Mediation of History in Post-Tiananmen Science Fiction,” in: Digital China, 2024, open access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.13049278.14

- Sinophone Utopias. Exploring Futures Beyond the China Dream. Cambria Press, 2023.

- “Specters of Utopia in Diceng Literature: Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day,” in: Sinophone Utopias, 2023.

- “Special Issue Digital Society in China,” Asiatische Studien 75.5: 1-11, 2022.

- “Chinese Science Fiction in the Anthropocene,” Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 12, no. 1 (February 7, 2021): 121–37. Open access: https://ecozona.eu/article/view/3527

- “Is Green the New Red? Cultural perspectives on ecological civilization,” EURICS Briefs, No. 5. 2020

- “Special Issue Anthropocene Matters: Envisioning Sustainability in the Sinosphere,” International Communication of Chinese Culture 5, no. 1 (May 1, 2018): 1–8.