Nathaniel Kenneth Isaacson

https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2222-2485

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 (26)

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, ORCID
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

Sources: Crossref, ORCID
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).

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.

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

Sources: Crossref, ORCID
Added: March 27, 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, ORCID
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, ORCID
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

Sources: Web Of Science, ORCID
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, ORCID
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, ORCID
Added: March 31, 2023

2018 journal article

Han Song

Chinese Literature Today, 7(1), 4–5.

By: N. Isaacson

Sources: Crossref, ORCID
Added: March 31, 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, ORCID
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, ORCID
Added: March 31, 2023

2017 journal article

Science as Institutional Formation in The New Era

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

By: N. Isaacson

Sources: Crossref, ORCID
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

Sources: Crossref, ORCID
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, ORCID
Added: March 31, 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

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

Sources: Crossref, ORCID
Added: March 31, 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, ORCID
Added: August 28, 2020

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, ORCID
Added: August 6, 2018

Employment

2011 - present

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

Education

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