Biography
Yadong Li is a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology. Focusing on China’s Inner Asian frontiers, he studies how ruins of progress materialize and are experienced in everyday lives, and how life persists amidst ruins and the sense of unfinishedness. His research interests lie at the intersection of ecological anthropology, critical infrastructure studies, and the anthropology of hope. He has also written about urban legends, moral panic, and UFO enthusiasts in China. In spare time, he is the host of the Anthropology channel of the New Books Network. Before attending Tulane, he earned an MRes from SOAS University of London and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh, both in social anthropology.
The NBN interviews hosted by Yadong can be found via this link: https://newbooksnetwork.com/hosts/profile/ff82f647-7151-4dcd-8f98-218155ffe637
Publications
“Tracing the Unfinished: Human-Plant Encounters and Their Echoes in China’s Interior Frontier.” Made in China Journal 11, no. 1 (2026): 128-135. https://madeinchinajournal.com/2026/03/24/tracing-the-unfinished-human-plant-encounters-and-their-echoes-in-chinas-interior-frontier/
“Spaces of creative resistance: social change projects in twenty-first-century East Asia: edited by Andrea Gevurtz Arai, New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, 2025, 187 pp., $32.95 (paperback), ISBN 9781978842496.” Global South Literary Studies, 2026, 1(1): 1-3. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/30684781.2026.2675994
“Jovanovic, Deana. 2024. Staging the Promises: Everyday Future-Making in a Serbian Industrial Town. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 246 pp. Hb.: $20,99, ISBN: 9781501780134.” Social Anthropology / Anthropologie Sociale, 2025, 3(3): 87. https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/saas/33/3/saas330307.xml
“Talking about UFOs, Talking about Hope: Understanding Temporality and Narrative Hope in Chinese UFO Talks.” Narrative Culture 11, no. 2 (2024): 222-241. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/27/article/941978/pdf