In Body, Ritual and Identity: A New Interpretation of Yan Yuan, Yang Jui-sung has demonstrated that the complexity of Yan's ideas and his hatred for Zhu Xi in particular need be interpreted in light of his traumatic life experiences, his frustration over the fall of the Ming dynasty, and anxiety caused by the civil service examination system.

Jui-sung Yang, Ph.D. (1997), University of California, Los Angeles, is Associate Professor of History at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He has published a number of articles on late imperial and modern Chinese intellectual and cultural history, and a book: Sick Man, Yellow Peril and Sleeping Lion: Chinese Images from "Western" Perspective & the Discourses of Modern Chinese National Identity (in Chinese), Taipei: NCCU Press, 2010.