School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

I am broadly interested in the moral dimension of the arts – the representation, expression, discourse, and governance of morality in the art world and the artworks. My PhD project investigates the cultural processes that foster an inextricability between the creator's moral status and the creation's aesthetic worth. I conduct an artwork-centred ethnographic study with the Dafen artists in China, former migrant-worker painters who used to live on reproducing oil paintings, to explore how they carve out and stabilise a new moral space to justify the worth of their original artworks. My other research projects include an investigation of the discourse of "entertainers' morality" (yide) in modern China (University of Cambridge, 2022) and the transition of artistic identity (Cultural Sociology, 2025).

I am currently a member of the ASA, BSA, ESA, and AAS. I serve as the co-convenor of the BSA Sociology of the Arts Study Group. Intending to sustain an intellectual community for emerging scholars who work within or adjacent to the sociology of the arts, and with the financial support of the BSA and the School of SPS, I (co-)organised three postgraduate symposiums in this capacity in 2024, 2025, and 2026 in succession, among other online and in-person events. I also undertake other professional services for international conferences, journals, and my Faculty and School.