He received his PhD from the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard, his MA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his BA from Yale. His research interests span the Han through Northern Song periods, and are divided between classical poetry and certain prose genres (zhiguai, biji, chuanqi). His book, The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, was published by the Harvard University Asia Center in 2010. He has also published articles on imperial poetry, gossip and historiography, silent reading, donkey braying, and coinage. His current work — a study of the Shishuo xinyu — is informed by data visualization and network theory. He is also co-editor, with David Schaberg, of a forthcoming edited volume of essays on gossip and anecdote in traditional China.