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