ZHANG Lisheng is assistant professor of anthropology at the Department of Sociology, Peking University. His sole-authored monograph Jianchuan Museum Complex: Memory, Ethics and Power in Chinese Private Heritage (Bloomsbury forthcoming), which investigates China’s most high-profile private museum, is based on his PhD research undertaken at the UCL Institute of Archaeology.

Education

PhD 2020 (Anthropology/Archaeology), University College London;

MA 2014 (Anthropology/Cultural Heritage Studies), University College London;

BA 2013 (English), Zhejiang University.

Research Interests

Social Anthropology, Material Culture Studies, Museum Anthropology

Courses Taught

Undergraduate courses：

   Anthropological museums and the display of culture (2024)

   History of Anthropology (2024)

   Economic Anthropology (2024)

Graduate courses:

   Social Anthropology and China Studies (2024)

   Anthropological Methodology (2024)

Selected Publications

Zhang, Lisheng. 2025 “The Jianchuan Museum Complex: Ethics and Politics in China’s Private Museum Practice”. in The Museum in Asia. Yunci Cai (ed). London: Routledge.

Zhang, Lisheng. 2024. Heritage as a Foreign Country. Dushu. 2024 (6): 120-128

Zhang, Lisheng, and David Francis. 2024. The Re-Crafting of Design: Towards an Ethnographic Perspective in Chinese Exhibition Design. in Museum Exhibition Design Histories, Claire Wintle, Kate Guy, Hajra Williams (eds), London: Routledge.

Zhang, Lisheng. 2023. Memories from the Margins: Remembering the ‘Red Age’ in a Chinese Private Museum. Museum Worlds. 11 (2023): 95–10.

Zhang, Lisheng. 2022. Museums and meaning-making: the ethics of a private museum in China. Bowuyuan (Museum). Vol.2. pp. 97-105 [Chinese]

Zhang, Lisheng. 2022. What heritage is and what heritage does. Wenbo Xuekan (Journal of Archaeology and Museology). Vol. 2. pp. 115-121 [Chinese]

Zhang, Lisheng. 2022. Ambivalent Nostalgia: Commemorating Zhiqing in the Jianchuan Museum Complex. Made in China Journal. Vol.7 Issue 1. https://doi.org/10.22459/MIC.07.01.2022.08

Zhang, Lisheng. 2021. “‘Slave(s)’ to the Great Museum: Heritage, Labour and Ethics in the Jianchuan Museum Complex”. in Grassroots Values and Local Cultural Heritage in China. H. Evans and M. Rowlands (eds). Lanham: Lexington Books

Zhang, Lisheng. 2021. “Complex collections, contentious memories: reflections on the Jianchuan Museum Cluster”. In Cultural China 2020. S. Kehoe and G. Wielander (eds). London: University of Westminster Press