Gao Mobo


Gao Mobo is a Chinese-Australian professor of Chinese studies.

Biography

Mobo Gao was born as the son of peasants in a village in Jiangxi that had no electricity at the time. As a child, he experienced a brief period of famine that followed the Great Leap Forward.
At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, Gao became a "barefoot teacher" at the village school, but was removed from office and subjected to criticism and self-criticism sessions.
In 1973 Gao left the village to study English at the University of Xiamen in Fujian. In 1977 he went to Britain to study at the University of Wales and the University of Westminster in London. He graduated from the University of Essex at Colchester with a master's and doctoral degree. He specialised in Chinese language and culture and became a visiting fellow at Oxford University in Britain and at Harvard University in the United States.
In 1990, Gao emigrated to Australia and became an associate professor at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. Later he became a senior lecturer at the University of Adelaide. In 2008, Gao was appointed director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Adelaide.
Gao frequently returns to his native village in China to visit his brother who still lives there.

Works

Books

Gao has written numerous reviews in various journals and on-line magazines, including: Portal, The International Journal of Humanities, Journal of Chinese Australia, China Study Group, Critical Asian Studies / Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Asia Media, Asian Studies Review, China Information, Pacific Asian Education, The Hong Kong Journal of Social Sciences, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Intercultural Communication, China Report, International Migration Quarterly Review, Pacific-Asian Education, Ming Pao Monthly, The Babel, The Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies, China Rights Forum, Australian Journal of Linguistics, Proceedings of Leiden Conference for Junior Linguists, New Statesman, Chinese News Digest, 《中国2000论坛》, China and World, Australian-China Review, and Australia-Asian Society of Tasmania Newsletter.