BIO
Qiran Jin is a Ph.D. candidate in Chinese Literature and History in the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. His research interests include early Chinese philology, the history of information, conceptual history, early Chinese textual culture, medieval commentarial traditions, Qing evidential scholarship, the relationship between antiquity and modernity, and digital humanities, with further interests in comparative philology, paleography and linguistics, book history, and art history. His dissertation explores lexicon production and information management in early China. He is also pursuing two further projects: one on the interaction between form and meaning in third-century philosophical discourse, in the context of Dark Learning, and another on digital philology, aimed at manuscript reconstruction and text mining. He was named Graduate Fellow at the Princeton Center for Digital Humanities in 2025.
EDUCATION
M.A. in East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University.
B.A. in Chinese Language and Literature, Peking University.
PUBLICATIONS
Book:
- Duanzhu shuowen kaojiao qunshu leizuan 段注說文攷校羣書類纂. Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 2023.
Edited Book:
- Martin Kern 柯馬丁. Jing shi jie wen 經史皆文. Edited by Jin Qiran 金琪然. Beijing: Sanlian, forthcoming in 2026.
Articles:
- “Reideologization: A Study on the Visualization of the Story of King Cheng and the Duke of Zhou in the Eastern Han.” Asiatische Studien–Études Asiatiques, accepted.
- “The Shuowen jiezi lexicon between Character Books and Rhyme Books.” Asia Major, third series, 38.2 (2025), forthcoming.
- “On the Rhymed Commentaries of Wang Bi 王弼 (226–249).” T’oung Pao 111 (2025): 259–91.
- “Duan shi Shuowen qianji suojian Duan Wang fenqi” 《段氏說文簽記》所見段王分歧. Zhongyang yanjiuyuan Lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 中央研究院歷史語言研究所集刊 95 (2024): 653–750.
- “Nang tuo bian” 囊橐辨. Wenxian yuyanxue 文獻語言學 13 (2021): 189–93.
- “Hanfeizi de ‘Jielao’ ‘Yulao’ yin Laozi kao” 《韓非子》的《解老》《喻老》引《老子》考. Wenxian yuyanxue 文獻語言學 7 (2019): 173–98.
- “Wu Yun yin yun shuo kaobian” 伍員音運說考辨. Aomen yuyanxue kan 澳門語言學刊, 2018.1: 49–54.
Essays:
- Qiran Jin and Yonghai Shao 邵永海. “Yingguo ren ruhe shang yuwenke—Yi nengli xunlian he xingqu yindao wei zhixiang de yingguo yuwen jiaoyu” 英國人如何上語文課——以能力訓練和興趣引導爲指向的英國語言教育. Guangming ribao 光明日報, 03.21.2018.
- Wang Yunpeng 王雲鵬 [Qiran Jin, pseudonym] “Yi yuyan xunlian wei zhongdian de yuwen jiaoyu” 以語言訓練爲重點的語文教育. Guangming ribao 光明日報, 03.21.2018.
Teaching
Co-Teaching Instructor, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
Fall 2026: “Worlding China: Antiquity and Modernity”
Co-teaching with Professor Xiaoyu Xia (CTI Course)
Assistant in Instruction, Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
- Spring 2026: “Qin & the Beginnings of Empires in China,” for Prof. Trenton Wilson
- Fall 2025: “A Global History of Monsters,” for Prof. Federico Marcon
CONFERENCES & TALKS
The Chi-Chung Yu Special Award, China Times Cultural Foundation’s Young Scholar Awards, ranking first among the year’s recipients 10/2026
ASPA 2026 Annual Meeting, LA| Speaker 04/2026
Presented “‘Discoursing on Swords’ and the Composition of the Zhuangzi.”
Asian Languages in the History of Lexicography, Montpellier | Speaker 03/2026
Presented “Reorganization of Philological Information: A Study on the Genre Transformation of the Shuowen jiezi in the Age of Print.”
AAS 2026 Annual Meeting, Vancouver | Panel Organizer 03/2026
Panel “Information Empire: Notation, Transmission, Translation, and Knowledge Production in Early China.”
Western Branch, ASPA 2025 Annual Meeting, Boulder | Speaker 10/2025
Presented “The Visualization of the Story of the Duke of Zhou and King Cheng in the Eastern Han.”
The 25th Biennial Dictionary Society of North America Conference, Buffalo | Speaker 05/2025
Presented “Genre Transformation in Dictionary Compilation: A Study on the Dictionary Pairs in Pre-Modern China.”
AOS 2025 Annual Meeting, Boston | Speaker 04/2025
Presented “Primers and Everyday Writing Practices in Early Imperial China.”
Invited Talk, Central China Normal University| Speaker 10/2024
Presented “Reideologization.”
AOS 2024 Annual Meeting, Chicago | Speaker 03/2024
Presented “Building and Breaking Boundaries: Elementary Learning and the Management of Philological Knowledge in Early and Medieval Chinese Bibliographies.”
Invited Talk, Jintan Library | Speaker 07/2023
Presented “On Duan Yucai’s Philological Contributions.”
Invited Talk, Sichuan University | Speaker 07/2023
Presented “Duan Yucai and Philology.”
Invited Talk, Peking University | Speaker 06/2023
Presented “The Conceptual History of Xiaoxue.”
Invited Talk, Peking University | Speaker 06/2023
Presented “Recent Developments in Shuowen Studies.”
AOS 2023 Annual Meeting, LA| Speaker 03/2023
Presented “Reorganization of Philological Information.”
WBAOS 2022 Meeting, Tucson | Speaker 11/2022
Presented “Anti-imbrication: Ouyang Xiu’s Sense of the Past.”
The 2nd Workshop of Stylometry and Textual Studies | Speaker 09/2020
Presented “‘Shuojian’ and the Composition of the Zhuangzi.”
The 1st Conference of Syntactical Semantics and Classical Chinese | Speaker 01/2019
Presented the draft of the Semantic Dictionary of Nouns in the Mencius.
International Conference of Research on Wang Niansun and Wang Yinzhi | Speaker 11/2018
Presented “Wang Niansun ‘Du Huainan neipian zazhi houxu ‘yin wu er zhi wu’ li kao” 王念孫《<讀淮南內篇雜志>後序》 “因誤而致誤” 例考.
The 1st Conference of Philology and Linguistics for Young Scholars | Speaker 07/2018
Presented “Hanfeizi de ‘Jielao’ ‘Yulao’ yin Laozi kao” 《韓非子》的《解老》《喻老》引《老子》考.
The 1st and 2nd Shiji Research Conference | Organizer & Speaker 12/2016; 11/2017
Presented “Wu Yun yin yun shuo kaobian” 伍員音運說考辨.
Presented “Shiji ‘Jiang xiang biao’ daoshu kao” 《史記·將相表》倒書考.
3rd Undergraduate Forum of Classical Studies | Speaker 05/2015
Presented “Lun Lunyu ‘Bu yi qi dao de zhi’ de ‘de zhi’” 論《論語》 “不以其道得之” 的 “得之.”
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Peer Review Service: T’oung Pao, Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy
Graduate Student Committee, EAS, Princeton | Member 2025-
Reading Group of Early Chinese Manuscripts, Princeton | Founding Chair 11/2025-
Xingzhihui Association, Columbia | Co-Chair 08/2020-05/2021
“Micro-Journal of Linguistics” | Chief Editor 06/2018-07/2019
PKU Linguistics Club | Co-Founder & Chair 09/2016-09/2018
Dialect Investigation and Protection in Shangyou County | Team Leader 07/2017
Reading Group of Shiji, PKU | Chair 09/2016-09/2017
Education Aid at Bozhi Primary School | Member 09-10/2016
“Wenshan Diaolong” Lecture Series on Literature | Organizer 09/2015-05/2016
FELLOWSHIP & AWARDS
American Society for Premodern Asia Graduate Student Award 2024, 2026
The Mabel Wu So S*71 and Ronald M. C. So, Ph.D. *71 Fellowship in Chinese Studies Fund
2024-2025
Princeton Center for Digital Humanities Graduate Fellowship 2025 Spring
First Prize Paper in the 1st Conference of Philology and Linguistics for Junior Scholars 07/2018
Excellent Graduate of Beijing Regular Higher Institutions 07/2018
Excellent Graduate of Peking University 06/2018
Chun-Tsung Scholar 05/2018
Li Yanhong Fellowship 2016
Merit Student of Peking University 2015, 2016, 2017