Bamo Qubumo
巴莫曲布嫫

Bamo Qubumo is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Division of Literary Theory and Criticism, as well as Executive Director of the Oral Traditions Research Center at the Institute of Ethnic Literature (IEL), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).  She also acts as Deputy President of the China Folklore Society, associate editor of a book series on “China National Chronicles of Traditional Festivals,” an editorial committee member of Ethnic Arts, Folklore Studies, and The Chinese Journal of Classical Studies (with headquarters in Hong Kong), as well as an architect and webmaster of the China Ethnic Literature Network and China Folklore Network.

She recently has been working with the IEL OTeam on the CASS-level Project for designing, creating, and customizing a set of metadata standards specific to “Archives of China Ethnic Minorities’ Oral Traditions,” a cross-multimedia database whose construction is currently underway at the Institute of Ethnic Literature of CASS.

Concentrating on the tie between written and oral traditions of the Yi, Bamo Qubumo has conducted long-term target field studies on various aspects of Bimo (priests or ritualists as a specific literate group), scripture culture, and Yi oral narratives. She is the author of The Golden-Eagle Spirit and the Poetic Soul: A Study of Ancient Poetics Recorded in the Yi’s Scriptures (2000), Spirit Picture and Ghost Board: A Survey of Incantation Epos and Ritualized Paintings in Nuosu Yi Area (2004), plus more than 90 articles. She is also the co-author of The History of Yi Culture (1990), A General History of Chinese Literature (chapters of written literature of the Yi, the Dai, and the Naxi, 1997), and Mountain Patterns: The Survival of Nuosu Culture in China (University of Washington Press, 2000), and the editor-in-chief of China Encyclopedia: Subsection of Ethnic Minority Literature (second edition, 2009). Her translation of Gregory Nagy’s Homeric Questions was published in 2008. Her new book, titled Verbal Dueling and Epic Performance, is a revised edition of her dissertation, based on a target field study carried out in her hometown.