Zhang Zhiyan, after receiving her BA in Chinese language and literature and her M.A. in comparative literature and world literature from Hunan University in China, has just obtained her doctor’s degree from the University of Exeter in the UK. Her research project “Death and Memory in Shakespearean Plays” was sponsored by the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) and the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC). She is also interested in comparative studies of early modern English literature and Chinese literature during the Ming and Qing dynasties. She is a member of the British Shakespeare Association (BSA), the Australian and New Zealand Shakespeare Association (ANZSA), the European Shakespeare Research Association (ESRA) and the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS). She has presented papers at some international conferences in the UK and France, including the BSA Conference 2012, published papers on Shakespeare studies in journals in the UK, USA and China, and written papers on late Ming Chinese culture including “A Flower not in Bloom: Matteo Ricci’s Art of Memory in Late Ming China” published in Matteo Ricci Institute’s bilingual journal Chinese Cross Currents in 2011.
