CSRPC Residential Fellow
chen97@uchicago.edu

Cecily Chen is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation project, tentatively titled “Theoretically Chinese,” turns to experimental aesthetics to trace shifting definitions of Chineseness and argues for aesthetic formalism’s unique critical salience for mediating historical flux and racial affect. She is also a translator of contemporary Chinese poetry, most recently Bed (Beautiful Days Press, 2026).