Dr. Keith McMahon

Keith McMahon has been professor of Chinese language and literature in EALC since 1984.  He served as chair of the department for twelve years and is currently Director of Graduate Studies.  He received his B.A. in French and Comparative Literature from Indiana University in 1974, his M.A. in Chinese from Yale University in 1976, and his Ph.D. in Chinese from Princeton in 1984.  He studied and lived in Taipei, Shanghai, and Beijing for a total of five years, and, until the pandemic, made annual trips to China, which he hopes to resume as soon as he can.  He studies the history of sexuality in China from ancient times to the verge of modernity, including most recently a two-volume study of the history of imperial marriage and women rulers.  A new book will appear in 2023 from the Harvard Asia Center, Saying All That Can Be Said.  The Art of Describing Sex in Jin Ping Mei.  His other areas of interest include: fictional narrative in late imperial China, mythical and historical narrative from ancient times to the end of the last dynasty, and the culture of opium smoking in 19^th century China and Euro-America.  His next project will be about immortals, demons, and cosmic geography in the sixteenth-century novel, Journey to the West.

Recent Courses Taught 

Sexual Politics in Dynastic China; Daily Life in China from the Opium War to 1911; Myth, Legend, and Folk Belief in East Asia; Advanced Chinese.

Areas of Interest

Chinese narrative

Chinese myths and legends

History of sexuality in China

The institution of polygamy in China

Women rulers in China

The culture of opium smoking