Deborah Porter joined the faculty of the Jackson School of International Studies as Associate Professor in 2002. She came to this position with a Ph.D.  from Princeton University in East Asian Studies after teaching at the University of Utah for 12 years. Her main activities are teaching and research. Her area of specialty is Chinese literature and culture, and she has published widely on sixteenth- century vernacular fiction, as well as the interconnections between early myth, history, and fiction in China. Her work is noted for its use of psychoanalytical theory to probe the emergence of cultural patterns. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses.