Jiani Fan is associate professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of Chinese Language and Literature of Tsinghua University, Beijing. She obtained her PhD in Comparative Literature, Princeton University (three fields: French literature and philosophy, German literature and philosophy, Classics).

1. French and German (from early modern to contemporary) intellectual history, philosophy, and literature;
2.  Classics (Classical reception in Continental Europe from early modern to contemporary period; Greek, Roman, and Late Antique intellectual history and philosophy, including some literary works);
3.  Chinese-European Comparative Studies; European Critical Theory as a branch of continental philosophy and its critique through analytical philosophy; relation between literature and philosophy; relation between visual arts, literature, and philosophy.

French Studies:

Fan, Jiani. “A Modern Cynic’s Parrhêsia and Enlightened False Consciousness in Diderot’s Philosophical Dialogue Rameau’s Nephew,” Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-024-00433-0;
Fan, Jiani. “« Se moquer de la philosophie est vraiment philosopher »: Plato, Aristotle, and the pedagogy of irony and play in Pascal’s Pensées.” The Seventeenth Century, Vol. 40.2,2025, pp. 297–319.
Fan, Jiani. François de La Rochefoucauld’s Appropriation and Unmasking of Seneca in his Maximes. Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature (accepted, expected publication date June 2025);
Fan, Jiani. Encyclopedia entry on Albert Camus’ L’homme révolté in The Literary Encyclopedia (under contract, about 3000 words);
Fan, Jiani. “From an Enclosed Universe to the Cartesian Vortex – Pascal’s, La Fontaine’s, and Fontenelle’s Literary Representation of the Universe” in Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, Vol.L, No.99, 2023, pp.229-325;
Fan, Jiani. “Friedrich Nietzsche’s Assessments of François de La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims through the Academic Sceptic Argumentative Method of pro and con and Syntactic Analysis,” Early Modern French Studies, Vol.45.2, 2023, pp.150-169;
Fan, Jiani. “From Libido Dominandi in Disguise to An Apologetic Device? Invention and Reinvention of Sweetness (Douceur) in La Rochefoucauld’s and Pascal’s works,” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, Vol. XLVIII,95, 2021, pp.319-336；
Fan, Jiani. Encyclopedia entry on Michel Foucault’s « Qu’est-ce qu’un auteur? » [What is an Author?] in The Literary Encyclopedia;
Fan, Jiani. Encyclopeida entry on La Rochefoucauld’s Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales in The Literary Encyclopedia；
Fan, Jiani. “Le vide dans la poésie du paysage de François Cheng et de Philippe Jaccottet,” dans Littératures et arts du vide, séries of the Colloque de Cerisy, France, Éditions Hermann, 2018, pp. 25-40 (in French) ;

German Studies:

Fan, Jiani. Book Review: Rex Welshon. Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality: a Guide. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2023. History of European Ideas, 51(2), pp.441-443;
Fan, Jiani. “Silence (aphasia) and Laughter: Nietzsche’s Parody and Assessment of Pyrrho in The Wanderer and His Shadow 213 and in his posthumous sections of 1888,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/09672559.2024.2418598;
Fan, Jiani. “Antiquity and Modernity at a Standstill – Interpreting Walter Benjamin’s Allegoric Image and Dialectic Image through Charles Baudelaire,” Cowrie: Comparative and World Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter, Vol.1, 2024 https://doi.org/10.1515/cwl-2024-2005;
Fan, Jiani. “Psychology as a First Principle? Self-love and The Will to Power in La Rochefoucauld and Nietzsche,” The European Legacy, Vol. 29.1, 2024, pp.51-69;
Fan, Jiani. “Friedrich Nietzsche and Blaise Pascal on Skepticisms and Honesty,” History of European Ideas, Vol. 49.7,2023, pp.1085-1104 (nominated by the journal editor for the Malcolm Bowie Prize of the British Society for French Studies);
Fan, Jiani. « La Stimmung du paysage dans l’esthétique allemande et les concepts esthétiques chez Wang Fuzhi et Wang Guowei», Monumenta Serica: Journal of Oriental Studies, vol. 71:2,pp.437-452 (in French);
Fan, Jiani. “Redeemed from Skepticism --- Nietzsche’s revaluation of ancient Skeptics’ truth investigation (ζητϵῖν) and philosophy of life (ἀταραξία),” Comparative and Continental Philosophy, 2021, Vol. 13, No.2, pp.142-52；
Fan, Jiani. “Images of Mind, Images of God---Mirror as Metaphor in Chinese Buddhism and Early Mysticism (focuses on Meister Eckhart and Diego Velázquez’s painting),” Buddhist-Christian Studies, 2018, Vol.38, pp.173-185；
Fan, Jiani. “‘Being-towards-Death’: A Comparative Study on Attitudes towards Death in Europe (focuses on Heidegger and Arnold Böcklin’s paintings) and in China,” published in European Journal of Sinology, special volume1, 2014, pp.183-206;

Classics:

Fan, Jiani. “Saint Augustine’s Confessions and Speech Acts” in Studia Patristica (Vol. CXVIII - Papers presented at the Eighteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2019). Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2021, pp. 131-146.

International talks (peer-review or invited):

“Trahit sua quemque voluptas ? Nietzsche on the Proof of Pleasure and the Proof of Strength in Pascal’s Wager,” Forschungskolloquium, Klassik Stiftung Weimar, invited talk;
“Nietzsche on Pascal and Montaigne” in the first student conference of Comparative Literature and World Literature at Tsinghua University, 2024.5, keynote speech;
“Friedrich Nietzsche’s Assessments of François de La Rochefoucauld’s Maxims through the Academic Sceptic Argumentative Method of pro and con and Syntactic Analysis,” The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, 2022, invited talk.
“Invention and Reinvention of Sweetness (Douceur): from Guez de Balzac to La Rochefoucauld and Pascal" in the MLA 2022 guaranteed panel on “How the French 17th-Century Invented (or Not).” (wrote the paper, but the panel has been cancelled one week before the conference due to the COVID)；
“Trace et ji: symptômes des ruines paysagères françaises et chinoises,” 61th annual conference of The British Society for French Studies, 2021(in French);
“Trahit sua quemque voluptas? Nietzsche’s assessment of La Rochefoucauld and Helvetius’s self-love and pleasure,” in the annual conference of NASSCFL, 2021;
“Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? --- Unmasking Seneca in François de La Rochefoucauld’s Maximes,” Society of Classical Studies, 2021;
“Antiquity and Modernity at a Standstill --- Analysis of Walter Benjamin’s Allegoric image and Dialectic image through Charles Baudelaire,” University of London, School of Advanced Studies 2019；Chair of the section 3 of the Conference Walter Benjamin et le XIXe siècle aujourd’hui;
“Conversation as a Therapy of Desire: Pascal’s Cosmo-theological Dialogue with a Libertin (fragment Lafuma 201 / Sellier 233),” in 38th Annual Conference of Society for Interdisciplinary French Seventeenth-Century Studies, 2019;
“Augustine and Speech Act” in XVIII International Conference on Patristic Studies in Oxford University, 2019;
“An Augustinian Humanism? --- On Francesco Petrarch’s “The Ascent of Mount Ventoux” the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, 2019;
“From Epicurean liberum arbitrium to Fideist Revelation: Montaigne’s vision about free will and natural law,” Renaissance Society of America, Toronto, 2019;
“A Modern Cynic’s Parrhesia in the Public Sphere of Enlightenment: The Dialogue and Pantomime in Rameau’s Nephew,” CSECS, Niagara Falls, 2018;
“Le vide dans la poésie du paysage de François Cheng et de Philippe Jaccottet” dans le Colloque international “Littératures et arts du vide.” Cerisy-la-Salle, France, 2017 (in French);
Translate from ancient Greek into English and present a section of Aristotle’s Physics in ancient philosophy reading group with scholars from Princeton University and Greek scholars in Syros, Greece, 2017;
Chair of the Panel “Lieux, Milieux et Injustice(s) de Mémoire” in Princeton Comparative Literature Department Annual Conference “Aesthetic Afterlives,” 2016;
“La visibilité de l’invisible : À La Recherche du temps perdu et les peintures impressionnistes,” Equinoxes conference “Intermediality,” the French Department of Brown University (in French), 2016 ;
“The potential of obscurity--the sublime landscape in Taoist aesthetics and Victor Hugo's trans-media creation” in The American Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting, 2015；
«La Stimmung romantique et le sentiment-paysage (情景) dans l’esthétique classique chinoise, » « Notions esthétiques : la perception sensible organisée » conference organised the Sorbonne, the Sorbonne nouvelle and the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France, 2014 ;
“‘Being- Towards- Death’: A Comparative Study on Attitudes Towards Death in Europe and China,” conference on “China and Europe,” University of Rome III, 2014;
“On the Road to Beatitude: “Westerns’ Spiritual Inspiration from Asian Culture in The Dharma Bums,” conference on “Marginalized Mainstream,” University College of London, 2013.

Tang Scholarship awarded by Tsinghua University & Cyrus Tang Foundation (awarded five young scholars on humanities and social science at Tsinghua University in the very calendar year), Josephine de Karman Dissertation Completion Fellowship (5/400+, awarded to students in the top tier universities in the USA in 2020-2021, including those in STEM, humanities, and social science), Laurence S. Rockefeller Graduate Prize Fellowship in the University Center for Human Values, Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche in Weimar Fellowship, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Scholarship, North American Patristics Society Scholarship, Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Grant, Floyd L. Moreland Fund, Princeton University Center for the Study of Religion Graduate Student Research Award, École Normale Supérieure de Paris Pensionnaire étrangère (awarded twice and declined twice), Princeton University Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity research grant, Princeton University Judaic Studies Center Grant, Princeton University Dean’s Fund for Scholarly Travel, Princeton Jewish Studies Prize, Seeger Hellenic Center Fund and Honorific Award, Joseph E. Croft *73 Fellowship, PIIRS Award, Scholarship of L’École Normale Supérieure de Paris, etc.

2024.5 Professor Philippe Desan's (UChicago, Romance Literature) talk on “The Importance of the Body in Montaigne and the Renaissance” in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University. https://www.dfll.tsinghua.edu.cn/info/1038/2157.htm

2022 Conference “Comparative Mysticisms” (Sponsored by Princeton University)https://comparativemysticisms.wordpress.com
2022 Conference “Antiquity in Early Modern France: Forms, Ideas, Media” (Sponsored by Princeton University) https://antiquityemfrance.wordpress.com/
2020-2021 “Receptions of Latin Literature,” Princeton IHUM monthly meeting (sponsored by Princeton University)https://ihum.princeton.edu/reading-groups/receptions-latin-literature-2020-2021
2020 “Receptions of Latin Literature- Seneca the Younger,” Princeton IHUM monthly meeting (sponsored by Princeton University)https://ihum.princeton.edu/reading-groups/receptions-latin-literature

[Switzerland] Claude Calame. Poetic Form, Pragmatics, and Cultural Memory: On Historical Writing and Fictional Literature in Ancient Greece. Beijing: Peking University Press (Western Classical Studies Series), 2017 (French-to-Chinese translation, Jiani Fan as the principal translator).

Viren Murthy. “Zhang Taiyan’s Zhuangzi-Inspired Concept of Equality in the Context of Meiji Buddhist Philosophy” (Solely translated by Fan Jiani).
Naoki Sakai. “Kokutai: “Pastoral Rule” and National Self-Awareness” (Solely translated by Fan Jiani).
Stefan Tanaka. “East Asia: The Delimitation of Time and History” (Co-translated by Fan Jiani and Tang Mianjia).
—The above three essays are included in: National Identity and Historical Consciousness: Examining Modern Japanese and Chinese Historiography and Modernity, edited by the Institute of Historical Research, Fudan University. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 2013.

[France] Michel Murat. “Literary Theory in the Contemporary Context of the Humanities” (Translated by Fan Jiani). In: Aesthetics and Art Criticism, edited by Zhu Liyuan. Taiyuan: Shanxi Education Press, 2012 (French-to-Chinese translation).

[France] Dominique Combe. “The Current State of Literary Theory in France” (Translated by Fan Jiani). In: Aesthetics and Art Criticism, edited by Zhu Liyuan. Taiyuan: Shanxi Education Press, 2012 (French-to-Chinese translation).

Mandarin Chinese: native

Classical Chinese: highly advanced (learn Classical Chinese since primary school)
English: near-native
French: near-native
German: highly advanced (C2, highest level in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages CEFR)
Latin: highly advanced in reading
Ancient Greek: advanced in reading
Italian: advanced reading proficiency
Middle High German: basic reading proficiency

 https://jianifan.weebly.com