Yi Zhou is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at Fudan University. She served on the Chinese Sociological Association as an Executive Council member（2020-2026) and head of the Special Committee for Cultural Sociology（2017-2022）. She was also a co-director of the Yale-Fudan Center for Cultural Sociology. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. 2007-2008/2023-2024 as a Visiting/Coordinating Researcher at the Harvard-Yenching Institute.
For nearly twenty-five years, she has engaged in research and teaching cultural sociology at Fudan University, Nanjing University, and Guizhou Minzu University. Specializing in Cultural Sociology, Professor Zhou examines Chinese grassroots society through cultural-theoretical frameworks, with expertise in: traditional values and modernization, state-society dynamics in market transitions, subcultures, intergenerational sociology, and trust mechanisms.
She has published more than 80 academic papers. Her published works include “Ideology, Tradition and Chinese-Style Modernization” (Academic Monthly, 2025), “Morality and Symbolism: The ‘Bitterness Narratives’ of the Small Business Owners in Yiwu, China.” (American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 2024), “How Sociology Embraces Culture: A Debate between Cultural Sociology and Cultural Studies” (Sociological Review, 2024),“Thick and Thin: Traditional Chinese Values and Concepts in Globalization” (Academic Monthly, 2022), “The Family-State concept of the Chinese: Two facts based on observations of the micro-media during the Covid-19 Pandemic” (Etnografia E Ricerca Qualitative 2020), “Bricolage and Homology: Studies on the Subculture of the Early Elderly Square Dancing Groups in Shanghai” (Journal of Chinese Sociology, 2018), “State-society Interdependence Model in Market Transition: A Case Study of the ‘Farmers’ City’ in Wenzhou the Early Reform Era” (Journal of Contemporary China, 2013), The First Village of China: Post-Collectivism in a Transitional Economy (Oxford University Press, 2006). She has been the principal investigator of two Key Projects of the National Social Science Foundation of China: “Trust Patterns and Mechanisms in Contemporary Society” (2011) and “Value Systems and Behaviors of the New Generation from the Perspective of Intergenerational Sociology” (2019). A large number of her works have received national-level and provincial-level Outstanding Achievement Awards. As the chief editor, she has completed the writing of the textbook Cultural Sociology (forthcoming).