Cheng Zhu

Emerging scholar in comparative literature specializing in transnational dialogues between Sinophone and Anglophone literatures, with particular expertise in queer aesthetics, narrative form, and the ethics of modernist performance. Currently completing an MA in English Literature at the University of Auckland (2024–25), my dissertation—The Self Under Narcissism: Artistic Detachment and Performed Identity in Mishima and Wilde—combines narratological close reading with psychoanalytic (Freud/Lacan) and gender-theoretical (Butler/Foucault) frameworks to examine how narrative form and cultural context mediate constructions of queer subjectivity. I seek to develop a doctoral project that extends this transnational framework to investigate Sinophone–Anglophone intersections in modernist and postwar fiction, with a focus on aesthetic mediation, media/mediality, and comparative theories of performance.

• Zhu, Cheng. “A Preliminary Discussion on the Reader’s Gaze and Literary Texts.” Sanhua Magazine, 03(2023): 67-69. DOI:CNKI:SUN:CHZZ.0.2023-03-015.
• Zhu, Cheng, “Benjy’s Queer Identity and Its Significance in The Sound and the Fury.” Delta, no. 21 (2023): 111–113. doi:CNKI:SUN:SJZH.0.2023-21-041.

• Area 1: World Literature and Modern Chinese Literature
• Area 2: Comparative Literature and Sinophone Literature

MA Dissertation – University of Auckland (2025)
The Self Under Narcissism: Artistic Detachment and Performed Identity in Mishima and Wilde
This dissertation undertakes a transnational comparative study of queer subjectivity and aesthetic ethics in Yukio Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Chapter One provides a narratological analysis of fragmented temporality, unreliable narration, and recursive structures that shape the reader’s engagement with identity and desire. Drawing on psychoanalytic frameworks—particularly Freudian narcissism and Lacanian mirror-stage theory—the project explores how narrative form mediates the tension between self-construction and self-erasure. Subsequent chapters incorporate Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and Michel Foucault’s ethics of the self to examine how cultural context and philosophical lineage inform the literary imagination of queer aesthetics. By bridging East Asian and Western literary traditions, this research contributes to comparative literature through its focus on transnational aesthetics, performative identity, and the ethics of narrative detachment.

BA Thesis – Zhejiang University of Technology (2023) 

“The World of the Fool”: A Comparative Study of the Fool Figure in Three Chinese and Western Novels. This thesis conducts a cross-cultural comparative analysis of the “fool” figure in William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, Mo Yan’s The Transparent Carrot, and Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon. Chapter One applies narratological methods to examine how subjective fragmentation, unreliable narration, and symbolic distortion shape the reader’s perception of marginality and violence. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory—particularly Lacan’s “Name-of-the-Father” and Žižek’s concept of the symptom—the project explores how the fool’s cognitive dissonance and linguistic exclusion reflect broader tensions in modern civilization. The study argues that the fool functions as both a literary mirror and a symbolic escape from ideological confinement, offering insight into the ethical failures of modernity. Through its integration of Western theory and Chinese literary contexts, the thesis contributes to comparative literature by foregrounding the aesthetic and philosophical significance of marginal figures across cultures.