{{Short description|British sinologist (born 1955)}} {{EngvarB|date=August 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}} {{Infobox academic | honorific_prefix = | name = Gregory B. Lee | honorific_suffix = | native_name = 利大英 (Lì Dàyīng) | native_name_lang = Standard Mandarin | image = File:Lee 2025-05-22.png | image_size = | alt = | caption = Lee in 2025 | birth_name = <!-- Use only if different from full/othernames --> | birth_date = {{bya|1955}}<!-- {{birth date and age |YYYY|MM|DD}} --> | birth_place = Liverpool, UK | death_date = <!-- {{death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date) --> | death_place = | nationality = | period = | workplaces = University of Cambridge<br/>SOAS, University of London<br/>University of Chicago<br/>University of Hong Kong<br/>City University of Hong Kong<br/>University of Lyon | occupation = Academic, author, broadcaster | known_for = Sinologist | spouse = | children = 2 | signature = | signature_alt = | signature_size = | era = | discipline = Chinese cultural studies<!-- Major academic discipline - e.g. Physicist, Sociologist, New Testament scholar, Ancient Near Eastern Linguist --> | sub_discipline = <!-- Academic discipline specialist area - e.g. Sub-atomic research, 20th Century Danish specialist, Pauline research, Arcadian and Ugaritic specialist --> | movement = <!-- Should match the idiologial movement or denomination (for religious), "school" of thought etc. (e.g. "Anglican", "Postmodernist", "Socialist" or "Green" etc. --> | religion = <!-- Religion should be supported with a citation from a reliable source --> | denomination = <!-- Religious denomination should be supported with a citation from a reliable source --> | education = Liverpool Collegiate School | alma_mater = {{ubl|SOAS University of London (BA, PhD)|Peking University}}<!-- will often consist of the linked name of the last-attended higher education institution. --> | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | doctoral_advisor = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | main_interests = Chinese and comparative literary and cultural studies | notable_works = | notable_ideas = | influences = | influenced = | awards = French Order of Academic Palms; Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities | website = | footnotes = }}
'''Gregory B. Lee''' (born 1955) is a writer and academic. Lee was Founding Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of St Andrews where he is now Emeritus Professor.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/gregory-lee(d3385f36-a6ea-4d13-bcbc-219fd8ec0adf).html| title=Research portal|access-date=12 August 2020}}</ref> He was until July 2020, Director of the French research Institute for Transtextual and Transcultural Studies based at Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 where he is ''Professeur émérite'' (Emeritus professor).<ref>{{Cite web |title=LEE Gregory - Faculté des Langues - Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3 |url=https://facdeslangues.univ-lyon3.fr/lee-gregory |access-date=30 June 2025 |website=Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3}}</ref> Lee was previously Chair Professor of Chinese and Transcultural Studies and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the City University of Hong Kong. From 2007 to 2010 Lee was First Vice-President (Research) of Jean Moulin University Lyon 3.<ref name="lyon3">{{Cite web | title=Gregory Lee | url=http://facdeslangues.univ-lyon3.fr/m-lee-gregory-97400.kjsp?RH=LAN-PRESdep_chi | date=18 December 2017 | access-date=13 November 2018 }}</ref> In 2010, Lee was made a Chevalier in the French Order of Academic Palms. In 2011, he was elected Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.hkhumanities.hk/?section=fellows|title=Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities|access-date=11 May 2019}}</ref>
==Academic career== Lee received his undergraduate degree in modern and classical Chinese at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 1979, and his PhD in Chinese poetry from the same institution in 1985.<ref>{{Cite web | title=SOAS Executive Board Agenda | url=https://www.soas.ac.uk/committees/execboard/file73533.pdf | date=29 November 2010 | access-date=13 November 2018 | archive-date=28 April 2021 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428082707/https://www.soas.ac.uk/committees/execboard/file73533.pdf | url-status=dead }}</ref> He also studied political economy and Chinese literature at Peking University (1979–83) as a British Council Scholar, and held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (1985–86) at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences's Institute of Literature, whose then director was Liu Zaifu.
Lee formerly taught in the United Kingdom at the University of Cambridge (1983–1984) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (1987–1988), before occupying posts as an assistant professor in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (1990–1994) and associate professor at the University of Hong Kong (1994–1998), where he taught comparative literature. A specialist in Chinese and comparative literary and cultural studies, his more recent work is in comparative cultural history, specifically in the fields of Chinese diaspora, transcultural studies, and intellectual decolonization. He joined the University of Lyon in 1998.<ref name="lyon3"/><ref name="isabella-wai">{{Cite journal | last=Wai | first=Isabella | title=Scholar debunks myth of monolithic China : An interview with Gregory Lee | url=http://www.yorku.ca/iwai/lee.html | journal=Road to East Asia | volume=3 | date=1998–1999 | accessdate=13 November 2018 }}</ref>
== Writings == Lee's dual-language biographical novel ''第八位中國商人同消失咗嘅海員／The Eighth Chinese Merchant and the Disappeared Seamen'' was published in 2022 by Hong Kong's 手民出版社 Typesetter Press [https://typesetter.hk/2022/07/01/eightherchant].
Lee's first book ''Dai Wangshu : The Life and Poetry of a Chinese Modernist'', The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press (1985), analysed the work and career of the modern Chinese poet Dai Wangshu. His second book, ''Troubadours, Trumpeters, Troubled Makers: Lyricism, Nationalism and Hybridity in China and Its Others'' (C. Hurst & Co. and Duke University Press, 1996), discusses the controversy surrounding the "Chineseness" of modern Chinese writers following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.<ref name="isabella-wai"/> His third book was ''Chinas Unlimited: Making the Imaginaries of China and Chineseness'' (Routledge and Hawai'i UP, 2003).<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2004/06/20/2003175881 | title=One Englishman's story of Chinese identity | publisher=Taipei Times | date=7 August 2014 }}</ref> His ''China's Lost Decade: The Politics and Poetics of the 1980s'' (Tigre de Papier, 2009; 2011) was republished as a revised edition in 2012 by Zephyr Press. His ''Un Spectre hante la Chine : Les fondements de la contestation actuelle'' was published in April 2012 ([http://www.tigredepapier.org Tigre de Papier] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101070957/http://www.tigredepapier.org/ |date=1 November 2020 }}, 2009; 2011). Lee's ''China Imagined: From European Fantasy to Spectacular Power'' was published in 2018 by C. Hurst & Co.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ft.com/stream/6d12e416-7f55-34f0-833e-d31f555cc9e6|title=Financial Times|date=17 December 2018|access-date=11 May 2019}}</ref>
==Other professional activities== Lee has also been a radio broadcaster on China and the Chinese diaspora. In 2005 he wrote and presented BBC Radio 3's Sunday Feature "Liver Birds and Laundrymen"<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/sundayfeature/pip/vi4vx/ | title=Liver Birds and Laundrymen. Europe's Earliest Chinatown | publisher=BBC | date=13 March 2005 }}</ref> in which he revisited the story of Europe's oldest Chinatown, in Liverpool (UK), and interrogated dominant British perceptions of the Chinese. He has also translated a variety of Chinese works, including those of contemporary poet Duo Duo (''Looking Out From Death'' Bloomsbury, 1989; ''The Boy Who Catches Wasps'' Zephyr, 2002),<ref>{{Cite book | last=Bien | first=Gloria | title=Baudelaire in China: A Study in Literary Reception | publisher=University of Delaware | year=2012 | isbn=9781611493900 | pages=214–215, 220 }}</ref> Dai Wangshu, and Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian ("Fugitives", a controversial 1989 play). Duo Duo was awarded the 2010 ''World Literature Today's'' Neustadt International Prize for Literature.
An online archive – [https://www.youtube.com/@theg.b.leearchive2937 The G. B. Lee Archive] – features his lectures, talks, interviews, podcasts, and film clips from the 1980s.
Lee is the General Editor of the journal ''Transtext(e)s-Transcultures''.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://journals.openedition.org/transtexts/|title=Open Edition Journals|website=Transtext(e)s Transcultures|publisher=Open Edition Journals|accessdate=11 May 2019}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/gregory-barry-lee(d3385f36-a6ea-4d13-bcbc-219fd8ec0adf).html St Andrews research portal]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Gregory}} Category:British sinologists Category:Chinese–English translators Category:Alumni of SOAS University of London Category:Academics of the University of Cambridge Category:Academics of the University of London Category:University of Chicago faculty Category:Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques Category:1955 births Category:Living people Category:Academic staff of the University of Lyon Category:British literary critics Category:British biographers Category:British radio personalities Category:British expatriates in China Category:British expatriates in France Category:British expatriates in Hong Kong Category:British expatriates in the United States Category:Academics from Liverpool