Quicklinks: Calendar / Courses / CSEAS Language Scholarship / Graduate Certificate in SEAS / Make a Gift

David Rolston

Name: David Rolston

Title(s):

Associate Professor
Coordinator for Southeast Asian Languages

Contact Information: 734.647.2097 , drolston@umich.edu

International Institute Affiliation(s):

CCS
CSEAS
CICS

Department Affiliation(s):

Asian Languages & Cultures

Research/Teaching Specialization: Professor Rolston completed his doctorate in Chinese Literature at the University of Chicago in 1988 and joined the faculty of the University of Michigan the same year. Professor Rolston specializes in traditional Chinese fiction, especially the Jinpingmei, Rulin waishi, and traditional Chinese criticism of the novel. He is the editor of How to Read the Chinese Novel and author of Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary. Professor Rolston has been interested in Peking opera for many decades and taught as a visiting professor at the Academy of Chinese Traditional Opera in Beijing. He has been engaged for many years on a book project that will attempt to recreate and analyze the shape of the "world" created on the Peking opera stage as seen most particularly through the lens of the both the range and types of characters that were brought to life on that stage. The main focus will be on the first half of the Republican period (1911-1949), when the first major collection of Peking opera scripts was published.