Nathaniel Kenneth Isaacson

Science Fiction, Chinese Science Fiction, Literature, Cinema, Chinese Cinema, Transpacific Studies, Modernity, Modern Chinese Literature, Sinophone Studies, Trains, Environmental humanities, Colonialism, Empire, Translation studies

Nathaniel Isaacson (he, him, his) is an Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Literature in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at North Carolina State University. His research interests include the history of Chinese science and science fiction, Chinese cinema, cultural studies, and literary translation. Nathaniel has published articles in the Oxford Handbook of Modern Chinese Literatures, and journals including Osiris and Science Fiction Studies. He has also published translations of non-fiction, poetry and fiction in the translation journals Renditions, Pathlight, Science Fiction Studies, and Chinese Literature Today. His book, Celestial Empire: the Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction (2017), examines the emergence of sf in late Qing China. A number of recent translations of sf author Han Song were included in the volume Exploring Dark Fiction #5: A Primer to Han Song (2020).

Works (40)

Updated: April 4th, 2024 16:44

2023 book review

Taking China to the World: The Cultural Production of Modernity

[Review of Taking China to the World: The Cultural Production of Modernity, by T. Huters]. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/isaacson-2/

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2022 journal article

An Analysis of the Concept of ‘Science Fiction in the Late Qing Dynasty

[Translation]. Comparative Literature and World Literature, 7(1), 1–19.

By: N. Isaacson & Z. Shu

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2022 chapter

Liu Cixin (2000) and Frant Gwo (2019), The Wandering Earth / Deimperializing Empire

In I. Yoshinaga, S. Guynes, & G. Canavan (Eds.), Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction (pp. 153–162).

By: N. Isaacson*

Ed(s): I. Yoshinaga, S. Guynes & G. Canavan

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2022 journal article

The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe Culture by Mark Bould

Science Fiction Studies, 49(3), 555–558.

By: N. Isaacson*

UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
13. Climate Action (OpenAlex)
Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 26, 2023

2021 journal article

Sino-American SF: Trans-national Participatory Culture and Translation

SFRA Review, 51(2), 62–70.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2021 book

Special Issue on Chinese Science Fiction

In Comparative Literature and World Literature (Vol. 6).

Nathaniel Isaacson

Ed(s): N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2021 chapter

Trains in Late Qing Print Culture

In D. Ambaras & K. M. D. Nov (Eds.), Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History.

By: N. Isaacson

Ed(s): D. Ambaras & K. Nov

Event: Sixth European Congress on World and Global History at Turku, Finland

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2021 journal article

Trains, Technology and National Affect in Socialist-Realist Cinema 1949-1965

Comparative Literature and World Literature, 6(1), 63.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2021 journal article

‘Subaltern’ No More: of What Does Chinese Science Fiction Speak?

Comparative Literature and World Literature, 6(1), 1–4.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2020 book

A Primer to Han Song

[Translation]. Los Angeles: Dark Moon Books.

Nathaniel Isaacson

Ed(s): N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2020 chapter book

The Automation of Affect: Robots and the Domestic Sphere in Sinophone Cinema

By: N. Isaacson n

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 27, 2023

2019 book review

Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation (Tor Books, 2019)

[Review of Broken Stars: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction in Translation, by K. Liu]. Los Angeles Review of Books.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2019 journal article

China Turns Outward: On the Literary Significance of Liu Cixin's Science Fiction

Science Fiction Studies, 46(1), 1–20.

By: L. Guangyi & N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2019 journal article

Locating Kexue Xiangsheng (Science Crosstalk) in Relation to the Selective Tradition of Chinese Science Fiction

OSIRIS, 34(1), 139–157.

By: N. Isaacson*

Sources: Web Of Science, NC State University Libraries
Added: July 29, 2019

2019 article

Socialist Cosmopolitanism: The Chinese Literary Universe, 1945-1965

Isaacson, N. (2019, November). JOURNAL OF CHINESE OVERSEAS, Vol. 15, pp. 287–290.

By: N. Isaacson n

Sources: Web Of Science, NC State University Libraries
Added: December 9, 2019

2018 journal article

Eerie Parables and Prophecies: An Analysis of Han Song’s Science Fiction

Chinese Literature Today, 7(1), 28–32.

By: L. Guangyi & N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2018 journal article

Evolution or Samsara? Spatio-Temporal Myth in Han Song's Science Fiction

Chinese Literature Today, 7(1), 23–27.

By: W. Yao & N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2018 journal article

Han Song

Chinese Literature Today, 7(1), 4–5.

By: N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2018 journal article

Soul-stealing Sand': War and Time in Xin jiyuan [The New Era] (Xin jiyuan yu ‘zhuihun sha’ – Xin jiyuan zhong de shijian yu zhanzheng)

[Translation]. Science Fiction Studies, 46(1), 1–23.

Nathaniel Isaacson

Ed(s): N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2018 book

Special Issue on Han Song and Contemporary Chinese SF

In Chinese Literature Today (Vol. 7).

Nathaniel Isaacson

Ed(s): N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2018 journal article

The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China. By Christopher Rea . Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. xvi + 335 pp. $70.00 (hardcover)

[Review of The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China, by C. Rea]. Journal of Chinese History, 2(1), 266–269.

By: N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: November 22, 2020

2018 journal article

The Fundamental Nature of the Universe

Chinese Literature Today, 7(1), 12–15.

By: H. Song & N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2017 journal article

"Qinggan de waibao” (The Outsourcing of Affect)

[Translation]. Wenxue.

By: N. Isaacson & W. Chen

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2017 book

Celestial Empire: the Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction

Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 21, 2023

2017 report

Death Ray on a Coral Island

[Translation of subtitles for film]. New York: MOMA.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2017 journal article

Science as Institutional Formation in <i>The New Era

Monde Chinois, 51-52(3), 28.

By: N. Isaacson n

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2016 book review

Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection ed. by Robert Hegel

[Review of Idle Talk under the Bean Arbor: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Story Collection, by R. Hegel]. China Review International, 23(1), 62–65.

By: N. Isaacson*

UN Sustainable Development Goal Categories
16. Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions (OpenAlex)
Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2016 chapter

Invisible Planets

In The Sound of Salt Forming: Short Stories by the Post-80s Generation in China (pp. 239–254).

By: H. Jingfang & N. Isaacson

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2016 chapter

Minzu kehuan xiaoshuo: Yueqiu zhimindi xiaoshuo yu xiandai zhongguo xiaoshuo de dansheng

In W. Yan (Ed.), Zhongguo kehuan yanjiu. Wuhan: Hubei kexue jixu chubanshe.

By: N. Isaacson & B. Kun

Ed(s): W. Yan

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2016 book

Orientalism, Scientific Practice, and Popular Culture in Late Qing China

In C. Rojas & A. Bachner (Eds.), Oxford Handbooks Online.

By: N. Isaacson n

Ed(s): C. Rojas & A. Bachner

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2015 chapter

Blurred Visions of Nation and State in Tong Enzheng’s Death Ray on a Coral Island

In J. Feely & S. A. Wells (Eds.), Simultaneous Worlds: Global Science Fiction Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

By: N. Isaacson

Ed(s): J. Feely & S. Wells

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2015 book review

Kinkley, Jeffrey, Visions of Dystopia in China’s New Historical Novels, (Columbia University Press, 2015)

[Review of Visions of Dystopia in China's New Historical Novels, by J. Kinkley].

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2014 book review

Tales of Futures Past: Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China

[Review of Tales of Futures Past: Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China, by P. Iovene]. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture. https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/isaacson/

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: March 31, 2023

2014 journal article

The Hospital

Chinese Literature Today, 4(2), 52–53.

By: L. Shijiang & N. Isaacson*

Sources: Crossref, NC State University Libraries
Added: August 28, 2020

2013 chapter

Author profile of Chen Ran

In Dictionary of Literary Biography (Vol. 370). Detroit: Gale Cengage.

By: N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2013 journal article

Science fiction for the nation: Tales of the moon colony and the birth of modern Chinese fiction

Science Fiction Studies, 40, 33–54.

By: N. Isaacson*

Sources: NC State University Libraries, NC State University Libraries
Added: August 6, 2018

2012 report

"As Night Fell it Began to Rain,” and “The Flowers Beneath the Overpass"

In Pathlight: New Chinese Writing [Translation].

By: N. Isaacson & Yangzi

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2011 journal article

"New Tales of Mr. Braggadocio” (Xin faluo xiansheng tan)

[Translation]. Renditions, 77&78, 15–38.

By: X. Nianci & N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2011 journal article

"The Passengers and the Creator” (Chengke yu chuangzaozhe)

[Translation]. Renditions, 77&78, 144–172.

By: H. Song & N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

2010 journal article

“Lessons From the History of Science” (Kexue shi jiao pian)

[Translation]. Renditions, 74, 80–99.

By: L. Xun & N. Isaacson

Source: NC State University Libraries
Added: April 7, 2023

Employment

Updated: March 21st, 2023 09:36

2011 - present

North Carolina State University Raleigh, North Carolina, US
Associate Professor World Languages and Cultures

Education

Updated: March 21st, 2023 09:44

2005 - 2011

University of California Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA, US
PhD East Asian Languages and Cultures

2001 - 2004

University of Arizona Tucson, US
MA East Asian Studies

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