Carla Nappi

Carla Nappi is a historical pataphysician whose research tends to focus on Chinese and Manchu texts in early modernity, and who holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in History at Pitt. From undergraduate training in paleobiology, Nappi pursued an M.A. in History of Science and then a Ph.D. in Chinese history. Her first book, The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and its Transformations in Early Modern China (Harvard, 2009), looked at problems of evidence and belief in Chinese natural history. Her two most recent books – Metagestures (w/ Dominic Pettman, Punctum 2019) and Uninvited (w/ Carrie Jenkins, McGill-Queens University Press, 2020) – reflect a growing emphasis on collaborative work and on integrating short fiction and poetry into her practice. Her forthcoming book, Illegible Cities: Translating Early Modern China (Oxford, forthcoming) blends fiction and history in a study of translation in China between the 14th and 19th centuries. Her current work is preoccupied with insomniac temporality; with the relationship between DJ’ing, history, and translation; and with housekeeping as a magical practice.