School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

As an undisciplined sociologist, my primary research interests lie in exploring the multifaceted relationships between humans and artifacts (technical objects), examining their cognitive, embodied, sensory, emotional, and cultural dimensions. More broadly, I am fascinated by all theoretical and empirical investigations concerning human-made objects, drawing insights from anthropology, STS, design studies, art history, and cognitive studies - as long as they preserve the purity of my sociological soul.

When I'm not buried in academic papers, I moonlight as a translator and columnist. I find joy in academic translation, watching different thought patterns clash and collide between languages, and treating it as my peculiar way of digesting theories. I've written a column for Esquire, one of China's top-selling fashion magazines, musing about design and material history. My writings, from commentaries to accessible pieces on social sciences, have also found their way into The Paper News (澎湃新闻) and The Thinker Weekly (信睿周刊).

I sometimes fancy myself as a not-so-successful novelist - actually, writing fiction is the only thing I've stuck with longer than sociology. My Ulysses app is a graveyard of unfinished novels, their outlines lying side by side with academic paper drafts - though somehow the latter always win the race to completion. Perhaps this explains my resistance to disciplinary constraints: I can't help but blame sociology - if I hadn't spent so much time on it, I might have been a slightly more successful novelist by now.