Lynn Sun is a cultural anthropologist. Her research interests lie in how various intimate experiences are articulated in a close and complex interaction between humans and their environments, and how discourses can become affective and thus “move” people. Using the experience-near approach, she has explored this theme in her current research project on how “marital happiness”—a set of dominant warm and fuzzy logics—is constructed and experienced by married women living in urban China and Japan today. She is now working on turning this piece of research into a book manuscript.
Before teaching at CUHK, Dr. Sun was a visiting research fellow at Waseda University. She was also part of the U.S.- China Research Group on Culture and Common Good initiated by the Georgetown University. Dr. Sun now teaches both undergraduate and MA courses on intimate relationships, gender, and popular culture.
Research Interests:
- intimate experiences
- happiness and well-being
- anthropology of affect
- anthropology of ethics
- anthropology of China and Japan
Representative Publications
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
| Forthcoming | “Dreams of Marriage: Social Media and Disconnect for Young Married Women.” In Becky Hsu, ed., Weathering the Storm: Social and Personal Solutions to Challenges in China (tentative), Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. |
| 2020 | Sun Lin 孫琳. “卡在夾縫間的「幸福」——由一個「老三屆」上海女人的婚姻說起” in 人類學好野——關於人類的，我都想學, edited by Huang Xiuwei, 117-132. Hong Kong: Humming Publishing, 2020. |
Courses Offered
| CHES1100 | Unofficial China |
| CHES2002 | Chinese Culture and Society in Transformation |
| CHES2101/ CCSS2120 | Chinese Family and Marriage |
| CHES2103/ UGEC2434/ CCSS2005 | Popular Culture in Contemporary China/Contemporary Chinese Popular Culture |
| CHES2104 | Consumer Culture in Contemporary China |
| CHES3009 | Youth in China |
| CHES5101 | Selected Themes on Gender in China |
| CHES5106 | Selected Themes on Anthropology |
| CHES5201A | Independent Study Project |