Zike Ren

Education

M.A., University of Virginia, 2023

M.A., Peking University, 2021

B.A., Peking University, 2018

Biography

I am a PhD candidate in the Corcoran Department of History at the University of Virginia. I was originally trained in textual scholarship at Peking University. My research focuses on the bureaucracy, political culture, and historical narratives of the Northern Song central court (960–1127), as well as the intellectual activities and social networks of scholar-officials. By integrating intellectual, institutional, and political history, I seek to offer a more nuanced understanding of the period while illuminating its broader significance for the history of imperial China.

My dissertation examines intellectual and political history, as well as political culture, in the early to mid-Northern Song. It focuses particularly on the bureaucratic dimension of scholar-official identity and explores how the disruption of official norms at the central court contributed to the rise of factionalism.

Publications

“A Woman in a Men’s World: the Legend of Empress Liu (970–1033, r. 1022–1033),” in An Anthology of Song Anecdotal Writing, edited by Ari Daniel Levine, Cong Ellen Zhang, and Ya Zuo. Completed and to be submitted for publication consideration.

Translator (from Chinese to English). “Villages” by Jun Fu, in Cambridge Companion to Song China, edited by Cong Ellen Zhang. Cambridge University Press, 2026 (forthcoming).

方壺存稿版本考兼論其與休寧西門汪氏族譜編修的關係, “The Genealogy of Existing Drafts of Fanghu: With a Discussion of its Connection to the Genealogical Compilations of the Wang Clan from Ximen, Xiuning.” (Chinese language.) Journal of Center for Chinese Classical Texts and Rare Books at Peking University 30, no.3 (2024): 239-52. 

全宋詩雜考七, “Miscellaneous Notes on the Complete Collections of Song Poetry VII.” (Chinese language.) Journal of Center for Chinese Classical Texts and Rare Books at Peking University 20 (2020): 252-71. 

Awards and Honors

Battestin Fellowship (Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia) 2026

History Department Summer Research Grant (University of Virginia) 2024

Scholarship for Chinese Classics of Confucius 大成國學獎學金 (2020 – 2021)

Scholarship of Peking University (2018 – 2020)

Courses Taught

HIEA 2101 Modern Korean History: One Peninsula, Two Paths (Spring 2024, 2026)

HIEA 2091 Korean Civilization to 1900 (Fall 2024, 2025)

Japanese 1010 (Fall 2022, Spring 2023)

Chinese 1010 (Fall 2021, Spring 2022)

Chinese Reference Books (Spring 2019, 2020, 2021)

Selected Reading from Zuozhuan (Fall 2019, 2020)