Dr Justin Winslett

DPhil Oriental Studies (Oxon)

School of East Asian Studies

Lecturer in Chinese Studies

j.winslett@sheffield.ac.uk
Jessop West

Full contact details

Dr Justin Winslett
School of East Asian Studies
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

Dr Winslett is a committed academic with a strong track record in both teaching and research. Over the last fifteen years, he has taught a broad range of classes related to Chinese and East Asian studies at the Universities of Cambridge, Manchester and Oxford.

Though a broad generalist, he has particularly sustained and extensive experience in teaching Classical and Literary Chinese and Chinese History and Culture. In all of his teaching, he places a strong emphasis on text-based instruction and on encouraging students to develop and engage critical skills in analysis and argument alongside basic content.

In addition to working with a broad range of Chinese sources, he has worked with Japanese, Manchu, Mongolian and Sanskrit language materials, and has a strong interest in promoting China as a region that is part of a larger global community both historically and in the present day.

Research interests

Dr Winslett's research is concerned with the extrahuman and supernatural in China in specific and East Asia in general. His work has ranged from Warring States manuscripts to contemporary Chinese cinema, but I have a particular interest in material from the Early Imperial period (221 BCE-10TH C CE).

Currently, he is converting his thesis into a monograph titled Understanding the Gods: The representation of the extrahuman in Early China which is a comprehensive survey of extrahuman agents in early Chinese materials.

Additionally, he is contributing to a book project with several other colleagues titled Concepts of Divinity: High Gods in Pre-Qin China that explores issues of divinity and religiosity in texts from the Classical Period. This project is part of the larger ‘Is Religion Natural? The Chinese Challenge’-project.

Upon completion of these, he will be engaging in a second book-length project that will explore the conception of the ‘monster’ in Chinese cultural works. This has been inspired by the recent resurgence in fantasy films in China and their constant recall of premodern tales, tropes and features amalgamated with the tradition of Western monsters and cinema.

Publications

Books

Teaching activities

Dr Winslett will teach the following modules during Spring semester 2020:

  • EAS356 War & Peace in East Asia
  • EAS370 China’s Rise: Domestic Transformation, Global Expansion
  • EAS6204 Chinese Cities in Transition
  • EAS6207 Politics and Governance in Contemporary China