Zhi Bie

Zhi Bie is an associate professor at Lanzhou University. After earning her Ph.D. (2018) in literature from the University of Western Brittany, she went on to serve as a postdoctoral researcher at Sun Yat-sen University (2019–2021). Her research focuses primarily on French Sinology, epistolary literature, and the relationship between the arts and spirituality. She has published a monograph and several studies on the construction of poetry and identity in writers' correspondence. As co-editor of two archival compilations, she also devotes her research to European perspectives on Chinese art between 1880 and 1930.

The project

Title: A Paradigm of Shared Knowledge: French Archaeological Missions and the Co-Construction of the History of Ancient Chinese Sculpture (1880–1930)

"In the late 1880s, spurred by the policy of expansion in the Far East and the development of the humanities and social sciences, French overseas exploration expanded and ushered in a methodological shift characterized by the use of local documents, new means of observation, and field studies. At the heart of this dynamic, ancient Chinese sculpture—particularly funerary and Buddhist statues from the Han to Tang dynasties—quickly emerged as a new field of interdisciplinary research. Governed by aesthetic principles radically different from the Greco-Roman tradition, stone sculpture in China served as a repository of dynastic memory and a vehicle for collective beliefs. France, the former center of European Sinology, was among the first nations to devote methodological studies to this centuries-old art form. Between 1890 and 1930, archaeological expeditions were launched in remote regions of China with the support of institutions such as the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Ministry of Public Instruction, and the Jacques-Doucet Library. This project aims to clarify the methodological approach and writing paradigms of this pivotal period, which constitutes a complex field of interaction where French institutional expectations, modern archaeological methodologies, and local Chinese scholarship converged to herald a new global history of art."

Hosting institution: Université de Bretagne Occidentale

Selective Bibliography

• JOË BOUSQUET : Correspondances amoureuses, espace d’identité et d’altérité. Paris : L’harmattan, 2020. 7.  ISBN : 978-2-343-20414-7.
• "Les premières expositions de la peinture chinoise en France : perspectives et approches", in French cultural studies, October 2025 , Volume 37, Issue 1, Sage publication, pp.21-32
• "La constitution des personnages fictifs chez J Bousquet", in Rethinking the novel，Lina Guo, J.L.Nardone (dir)  Guangzhou: Maison d’édition du peuple de Guangdong, 2025.12.I SBN :978-7-218-18965-9
• "Etude de la mission archéologique de Segalen, Voisins, Lartigue en Chine 1914"，in Journal de l’Université de Sun-Yat-Sen, édition science sociale, 2022, vol.62, N°6, pp.135-146
• "La conception du langage dans les œuvres critiques de Joë Bousquet", in Journal de l’Université des langues étrangères de GuangDong, 2022, vol.33, N°2, pp.79-90.
• "Les lettres de Chine : une poétique de la rencontre", in Cahiers Victor Segalen N°4, S.Guermès, P.Postel(Dir.),  2022, pp.3-16.