Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies Ziying You is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies at the University of Georgia. She is an Executive Board Member (2024-2026) of the American Folklore Society (AFS), and the Senior Convener of the Transnational Asia/Pacific Section of AFS. Her research interests include Chinese literature and culture, folklore studies, critical heritage studies, women’s, gender, and sexuality Studies, anti-Asian racisms, and global health. She is the author of Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning (2020). She is co-editor of Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice (2019) and of the special issue Intangible Cultural Heritage in Asia: Traditions in Transition (2020). Her new book is titled Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Chinese and Chinese American Women: Racisms, Feminisms, and Foodways (2025). Education: Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University 2015 M.A. Interdisciplinary Studies: Folklore, University of Oregon 2009 M.A. Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature, Beijing University (China) 2005 B.A. Chinese Language and Literature Education, Henan Normal University (China) 2002 Research Research Interests: Chinese Oral and Performing Literature Food and Folklore Chinese Mythology and Popular Religion Narrative and Narrative Theory Digital Media and Ethnographic Filmmaking Grassroots agency in the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Global Health Selected Publications Selected Publications: Books You, Ziying. 2025. Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Chinese and Chinese American Women: Racisms, Feminisms, and Foodways. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. https://iupress.org/9780253073334/impacts-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-chinese-and-chinese-american-women/ You, Ziying. 2020. Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. https://iupress.org/9780253046369/folk-literati-contested-tradition-and-heritage-in-contemporary-china/ Zhang, Lijun, and Ziying You, eds. 2019. Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. https://iupress.org/9780253044105/chinese-folklore-studies-today/ Book Chapters Zhang, Qiaoyun, and Ziying You. 2022. “Fear not the want of armor, for mine is also yours to wear”: Trust and Community Cultivation for Risk Response of a Chinese Immigrant Group in the United States. In Covid-19 Responses of Local Communities around the World: Exploring Trust in the Context of Risk and Fear, edited by Khun Eng Kuah, Gilles Guiheux, and Francis Lim, 155-169. London and New York: Routledge. You, Ziying. 2021. “Serving a Campus as an International Scholar.” In What Folklorists Do: Professional Possibilities in Folklore Studies, edited by Timothy Lloyd, 27-31. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. You, Ziying. 2019. “Contested Myth, History, and Beliefs: Remaking Yao and Shun’s Stories in Hongtong, Shanxi.” In Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice, edited by Lijun Zhang and Ziying You. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Zhang, Lijun, and Ziying You. 2019. Introduction to Chinese Folklore Studies Today: Discourse and Practice, edited by Lijun Zhang and Ziying You. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Journal Articles Hinden, Adam, Ziying You, and Zhen Guo. 2023. Online Activism and Grassroots Memorialization in the Age of COVID-19: Dr. Li Wenliang’s Virtual Wailing Wall. Cultural Analysis, Forum Series 1: Pandemics and Politics:1-22. https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~culturalanalysis/series/1/HindenYouGuo.html You, Ziying and Qiaoyun Zhang, 2022. “Graves in One’s Heart: Grassroots Memorialization of Dr. Li Wenliang during the COVID-19 Outbreak in China.” Journal of American Folklore 135(535):3-25. You, Ziying. 2020. “Zainan, chuanshuo he xinyang de hudong: richang zhengzhi yu ren shen huhui 灾难、传说和信仰的互动:日常政治与人神互惠 (The Interplay of Disasters, Legends and Beliefs: Everyday Politics and Human-deity Reciprocity).” Minzu wenxue yanjiu 民族文学研究 (Studies of Ethnic Literature) 6: 45-53. You, Ziying. 2020. “Conflicts over Local Beliefs: Feudal Superstitions as Intangible Cultural Heritage in China.” Asian Ethnology 79(1): 3-19. https://asianethnology.org/articles/2257 You, Ziying and Patricia Hardwick. 2020. “Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue: Intangible Cultural Heritage in Asia: Traditions in Transition.” Asian Ethnology 79(1): 137-159. https://asianethnology.org/articles/2252 You, Ziying. 2017. “Cong hongshui shenhua dao hongshui xushi: Shanxi Hongtong yi zaimin wei zhongxin de zainan xushi he shequ chongjian 从洪水神话到洪水叙事：山西洪洞以灾民为中心的灾难叙事和社区重建(From Flood Myth to Flood Narrative: Survivor-centered Disaster Narrative and Community Rebuilding in Hongtong, Shanxi).” Minsu yanjiu 民俗研究(Folklore Studies) 4: 117-126. You, Ziying. 2017. “Bianqian zhong de chuantong: Shanxi Hongtong youguan feiyi baohu de chongtu yu zhengyi 变迁中的传统：山西洪洞有关非遗保护的冲突与争议(Changing Tradition: Contentious Responses to the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Hongtong, Shanxi).” Wenhua yichan文化遗产(Cultural Heritage) 1: 33-42. You, Ziying. 2015. “Entertaining Deities and Humans with Performances of Puju (Puzhou Opera) at a Temple Fair in Yangxie Village, Southwestern Shanxi, May 29-June 2, 2013.”Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 34 (2): 139-161. You, Ziying. 2015. “Shifting Actors and Power Relations: Contentious Local Responses to the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Contemporary China.” Journal of Folklore Research 52 (2-3): 253-268. Reprinted in UNESCO on the Ground: Local Perspectives on Global Policy for Intangible Cultural Heritage, edited by Michael Dylan Foster and Lisa Gilman, 113-128. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lloyd, Timothy, and Ziying You. 2013. “Meiguo gonggong minsuxue de guoqu, xianzai he weilai 美国公共民俗学的过去、现在和未来(The Past, Present, and Future of Public Folklore in America).” Translated by Ling Ding. Minsu yanjiu 6: 30-41. You, Ziying. 2012. “Tradition and Ideology: Creating and Performing New Gushi in China from 1962 to 1966.” Asian Ethnology 71 (2): 259-280.
