Daniel Fried
Faculty of Arts - East Asian Studies Dept
Faculty of Arts - East Asian Studies Dept
Pronouns: he/him
Personal Website: https://danielfried.ca
Contact
Chair
Faculty of Arts - East Asian Studies Dept
- dfried@ualberta.ca
Overview
Area of Study / Keywords
Chinese philosophy Chinese Literature Comparative Literature Intellectual History
About
I specialize in comparative approaches to classical Chinese intellectual history, philosophy, and literature, addressing topics of how reading and writing practices are conceived and contextualized in ancient and medieval China, and how these compare to European modes of textuality.
In my most recent scholarly book, The First Print Era, I examine the way in which print culture first took hold in the Northern Song Dynasty, and how certain ways of cultural production and consumption were changed by the widespread adoption of print over the course of the 11th century.
My previous book, Dao and Sign in History, these interests take the form of an investigation of Daoist semiotics: the first part of the work discusses this tradition in comparison with Continental philosophy of the relation of language to ethics, and the second examines the historical uses of Daoist semiotic thought in Six Dynasties China.
Together with Haiyan Xie of Central China Normal University, I've recently also translated a scholarly classic in Daoist Studies, Liu Shouhua's Taoism and Chinese Folk Literature. Palgrave is currently listing publication for Feburary 2027.
In March 2026, I also published my first public-facing book, The Activist: A Daoist Protest Manual. It focuses on harnessing the wisdom of Daoist traditions to rethink conflict-heavy social activism, and how it could be made both more sustainable and effective by becoming more gentle.
I also do have subsidiary research interests in modern Chinese literature, as well as in European literatures, and often teach these topics, as well as courses in literary theory, at the undergraduate level. However, I only accept new graduate students who are planning to work on topics in Chinese literature or philosophy from the Warring States period through the Southern Song dynasty.
Courses
EASIA 480 - Honors Seminar
Note: Open to fourth year Honors students only.
EASIA 490 - Honors Thesis
Note: Open to fourth year Honors students only.
EASIA 550 - East Asia Research Methods
Online asynchronous graduate-level research methods course consisting of multiple modules covering the different languages, regions, and disciplines addressed in our graduate program.
EASIA 598 - Topics in East Asian Research
An inquiry into the diversity of disciplines used in the study of East Asian literatures and cultures. Prerequisite: Consent of Department.
Scholarly Activities
Research - Co-Editor, Routledge Studies in Comparative Chinese Literature and Culture
May 2020 to Ongoing
Routledge Studies in Comparative Chinese Literature and Culture is a new scholarly series intended to bridge Anglophone and Sinophone discussions of Chinese literary and cultural engagements with the rest of the world. Proposals for innovative, high-quality research on any subject within this field are welcome.
Research - Founding Chair, MLA Forum in pre-14th Century Chinese Literature
20180101 to 20181231
I organized the MLA forum in pre-14th century Chinese literature, and served as the first chair of the forum.
Admin - President, Association of Chinese and Comparative Literature
20171101 to 20190801
Featured Publications
Daniel Fried
2023 October; 10.4324/9781003322634
Daniel Fried
2023 October; 10.4324/9781003322634-5
Daniel Fried
2023 October; 10.4324/9781003322634-2
Daniel Fried
2023 October; 10.4324/9781003322634-3
Daniel Fried
2023 October; 10.4324/9781003322634-4
Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy. 2022 January; 10.1007/978-3-030-92331-0_12
Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy. 2022 January; 10.1007/978-3-030-92331-0_15
Rivers to the East: Heidegger’s Lectures on Hölderlin as Prolegomena for Daoist Engagements
2022 January;
Song Dynasty Classicism and the Eleventh Century "Print Modernity"
2020 January;
(Non-)Geographical Futures of Comparative Literature [Special Issue]
2014 January;
Culture, Theory and Critique. 2014 January; 10.1080/14735784.2014.892768
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. 2014 January; 10.1353/crc.2014.0035
Dao. 2012 January; 10.1007/s11712-012-9290-1
Canadian Review of Comparative Literature. 2009 January;
A Never-Stable Word: Zhuangzi's Zhiyan 卮言 and 'Tipping-Vessel' Irrigation
2007 January;
Defining Courtesy: Spenser, Calepine and Renaissance Lexicography
2007 January;
PMLA. 2007 January; 10.1632/pmla.2007.122.5.1482
Comparative Critical Studies. 2006 January; 10.3366/ccs.2006.3.3.371
The Politics of the Coleridgean Symbol
2006 January;
Beijing's Crypto-Victorian: Traditionalist Influences on Hu Shi's Poetic Practice
2006 January;
Of Boars, Rhapsodes, and the Uses of Culturalist Error
2005 January;
Interrogative Ecocriticism and the Rhetoric of Global Warming
Daniel Fried
Tamkang Review=淡江評論. 2005 January;
A Bloody Absence: Communist Narratology and the Literature of May Thirtieth
2004 January;
Milton and Empiricist Semiotics
2003 January;
Allegory, Allegoresis, and the Hermeneutics of Social Networks
2003 January;
Milton Quarterly. 2003 January; 10.1111/J.1094-348X.2003.00054.X
Daniel Fried
View additional publications
Research Students
Not currently accepting undergraduate students for research project supervision.