JunProf. Dr. Jessica Imbach

Prior to joining the University of Freiburg as a junior professor, Jessica Imbach was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Chinese Studies at the University of Zurich from May 2017 to February 2024. For her PhD thesis „Not Afraid of Ghosts: Stories of the Spectral in Modern Chinese Fiction“ (2017) she was awarded the 2018 dissertation award of the University of Zurich. She was a visiting scholar at Shanghai University in 2014 and a research fellow at the European Institute of Chinese Studies in Paris (September–November 2020). In 2023, she was the winner of the FAN early career research award in the category „Humanities and Social Sciences.“ In 2025, she received a Margarete von Wrangell grant for a fully funded three-year postdoctoral position at her department.

Research Monographs and Special Issues

• Rethinking Literary China: Essays in Honor of Andrea Riemenschnitter. DeGruyter, 2025. [co-editor]
• Digital China: Creativity and Community in the Sinocybersphere. Amsterdam University Press, 2024. [editor] https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/88250
• Sinophone Utopias. Exploring Futures Beyond the China Dream. Cambria Press, 2023. [co-editor]
• “Special Issue Digital Society in China,” Asiatische Studien 75.5: 1-11, 2022. [co-editor]
• “Special Issue Anthropocene Matters: Envisioning Sustainability in the Sinosphere,” International Communication of Chinese Culture 5, no. 1 (May 1, 2018): 1–8, [co-editor]
• “Special Issue Hong Kong Connections Across the Sinosphere,” Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, (2018) 20:8 [co-editor]
• Not Afraid of Ghosts: Stories of the Spectral in Modern Chinese Fiction. Diss. phil. University of Zurich, 2017, https://opac.nebis.ch/ediss/20173186.pdf    
• “Special Issue Recognizing Ghosts,” Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese, (2014) 12, no. 1. [co- editor]

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

• Li Bai in Space: Poetry and Translation in Chinese Science Fiction. Chapter in: Rethinking Literary China, 2025.
• Locating Digital China. Chapter in: Digital China, 2024. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.13049278.6
• Liu Cixin’s China 2185, Digital Futurism, and the Mediation of History in Post-Tiananmen Science Fiction. Chapter in: Digital China, 2024. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.13049278.14
• Specters of Utopia in Diceng Literature: Yu Hua’s The Seventh Day, Chapter in: Sinophone Utopias, 2023.
• “Chinese Science Fiction in the Anthropocene,” Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment 12, no. 1 (February 7, 2021): 121–37. https://ecozona.eu/article/view/3527/4892
• “Variations on Gui and the Trouble with Ghosts in Modern Chinese Fiction,” Asiatische Studien – Études Asiatiques 70, no. 3 (2017): 865–80.
• “Ghost Talk in 1936: ‘Living Ghosts’ and ‘Real Ghosts’ in Republican-Era Literary Discourse and the Two Analects Fortnightly Ghost Story Special Issues,” Journal of Modern Literature in Chinese, 2014, 14–45.
• “Dem Realismus ein Grab: Yan Liankes Shouhuo als ‘Kleine Literatur,’” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 66, no. 1 (2012): 79–102.

Reviews and Reports

• https://geschichtedergegenwart.ch/zwischen-trauma-und-traum-chinas-literarische-gegenwart/
• Erzähltes und erzählendes China, UZH News, 06.07.2023
• A review of Cordoba, Cyrill. China–Swiss Relations during the Cold War, 1949–1989: Between Soft Power and Propaganda. Asian Studies Review 0, no. 0 (May 28, 2023): 1–2.

• Revisiting the Maoist ‘smart village’, University of Westminster, Contemporary China Blog, Issue 9, 28.07.2021. http://blog.westminster.ac.uk/contemporarychina/revisiting-the-maoist-smart-village/
• Is Green the New Red? Cultural perspectives on ecological civilization, EURICS Briefs, No. 5. 2020
• A review of Chiang, Howard (ed.): Sexuality in China: Histories of Power and Pleasure. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. In: Asiatische Studien 74, 2. 2020
• A review of Pozzi, Laura: The Revolution of a Little Hero: The Sanmao Comic Strips and the Politics of Childhood in China, 1935-1962, Dissertation Reviews, 2015. http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/12139
• Conference Report: Humanistic Scholarship and the Anthropocene: Approaching China            from a Sustainability Paradigm. 15.05.2015-17.05.2015, Zurich, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 10.08.2015, https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-113487
• Conference Report: Ghosts in Asian Cinemas. 04.11.2011-05.11.2011, Zurich, in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 25.01.2012, https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-67044

• Equal opportunity Officer of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Freiburg [July 2024-present]
• Student Advisor and Curriculum Coordinator UZH [August 2021-February 2024]
• Chinese Studies Representative of the Asian and Oriental Studies Institute [2019-2021]
• Schweizerische Asiengesellschaft (SAG)
• Deutsche Vereinigung für Chinastudien (DVCS)
• European Association of Chinese Studies (EACS)
• Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA)

• Jiayin Yang, „Contemporary Chinese Martial Arts Fiction: Cultural Memory and Fandom Practices“ (SS 2025-)
• Weiming Gao, „Scifi Fandom in China“ (SS 2025-)