During the Fall 2026 semester, five new faculty members received tenure-track appointments, including Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (Chinese) Qiaomei Tang. The Phoenix had the opportunity to interview Professor Tang to discuss her research and teaching goals for the upcoming academic year.
Tang grew up in a small town in Eastern China, close to Hangzhou, before earning B.A. and M.A. degrees in Chinese language and literature from Beijing Normal University. Shortly after, she moved to the United States to attend Harvard University, where she earned a Ph.D in East Asian languages and civilizations. During her time at Harvard, Tang also worked at Colgate University as a visiting assistant instructor.
Shortly after earning her doctoral degree in 2016, Tang joined Swarthmore’s faculty on a one-year visiting assistant professor contract. During that time, she said, she was especially struck by the scenery: “The beauty of the campus and the Ville left a lasting impression on me. I recall thoroughly enjoying evening strolls through town, admiring the tastefully landscaped homes along the way.”
Tang emphasized how profoundly her students had impacted her, noting that she came across “stacks” of their papers that she had saved for the past decade while packing for her return to Swarthmore.
After her year at Swarthmore, Tang taught at Grinnell College in Iowa before returning to Swarthmore for the Fall 2026 semester.
During her interview, Tang discussed her research, which centers around early medieval Chinese literature and culture with an emphasis on gender and social roles. Tang explained that her earlier studies focused on the relationship between literature and the law, but her interests shifted during a decision by the Chinese Supreme Court which reinterpreted the marriage law. Tang noted that she observed the “sparking [of] a nationwide debate across Chinese social media about the erosion of women’s rights. Witnessing this unfold profoundly shaped the direction of my scholarship.”
She continues to see a connection between her work and the students she collaborates with today in conjunction with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, a moment she feels “has reignited urgent conversations about bodily autonomy and gender equality across the country.”
Tang expressed her hope that her work on pre-Modern China will help people to reflect and understand that “we are actually not that different from people in the past — we share the same range of emotions.”
Her current research focuses on jealousy, which she said was considered a female-specific emotion during her period of study, the 3rd to the 10th century CE. Tang clarified that jealousy was only written about from a male perspective, as women were not given the same access to writing.
“My research examines how jealousy — particularly female jealousy — was represented across a range of discourses, including official historiography, literature, medicine, and religion. Through this analysis, I aim to shed light on the gender dynamics of medieval China, as well as the enduring fascination with exceptionally jealous women that has persisted throughout the Chinese literary tradition.”
In her new role at the college, Tang is teaching second-year Mandarin Chinese for the fall semester. In the spring, she’ll offer a course on the Three Kingdoms period (220–265 CE) — which she calls “an era in China’s long history that continues to captivate audiences both within China and around the world.”
Tang hopes to foster an inclusive learning environment for her students: “I make it a priority to recognize individual differences among my students, and adapt my teaching methods to accommodate diverse learning styles and meet each student’s unique needs.”
If she could teach any new course, she would create a class on “The Dream of the Red Chamber,” an 18th-century Chinese novel by Cao Xueqin that she described as a “masterpiece of traditional Chinese literature.” Tang had wanted to take a similar class as an undergraduate in Beijing, but was not able to and now aims to give Swarthmore students the same opportunity.
Tang encouraged prospective students to give the department a chance and not to be intimidated to learn Chinese. She added, “Beyond a learning experience itself, I think Chinese is an incredibly valuable language to have in a student’s toolkit. It will open up doors, both professionally and personally, for students.”
