Dr. Shifen Gong grew up in Shanghai. After graduating from Shanghai Foreign Trade Institute, she was assigned to teach in Xinjiang, a Muslim province on the remote northwestern border of China. In 1982 she received a masters degree in Comparative Literature from Tianjin Teacher's University. Three years later, she left for New Zealand to complete a doctoral degree in comparative literature, and in 1998 moved with her husband to the US. She has taught Chinese and English as a Second Language in universities in China, New Zealand and the US.
Dr. Gong has also published extensively in both English and Chinese on culture, language, and literature in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, England, and the US. She has produced textbooks for learning English and Chinese, and her latest book is a comparative study, "A Fine Pen: The Chinese View of Katherine Mansfield" published by University of Otago Press. Shortly after she moved to Louisville, Dr. Gong was selected a Forum Fellow by the Courier-Journal, and published two essays on the Forum page.
In addition to teaching Chinese language and culture at Bellarmine University she also works as Program Coordinator at Crane House, an Asian cultural center, and serves on the Asian Film Festival Committee.
Dr. Shifen Gong grew up in Shanghai. After graduating from Shanghai Foreign Trade Institute, she was assigned to teach in Xinjiang, a Muslim province on the remote northwestern border of China. In 1982 she received a masters degree in Comparative Literature from Tianjin Teacher's University. Three years later, she left for New Zealand to complete a doctoral degree in comparative literature, and in 1998 moved with her husband to the US. She has taught Chinese and English as a Second Language in universities in China, New Zealand and the US.