Professor Ma Ruifang, born in April 1942, graduated from theDepartment of Chinese Language and Literature at Shandong University in 1965. She is an essayist and novelist as well as a faculty member. An academic leader in the area of Ancient (Traditional) Chinese Literature at the School of Literature at Shandong University, she holds the rank of Professor, and serves as a Dissertation Advisor to Ph.D students in the School. She is a  Member of the National Committee of the Chinese Writers Association, a Director on the Executive Board of the Chinese Association for the Study of A Dream of the Red Mansions, a Member of the Academic Board for the Ancient Literature Research Center of Fudan University, and Vice Chairman of the Writers Association of Shandong Province.

Professor Ma’s primary research fields are:Chinese classical novels, Studies of the novel A Dream of the Red Mansions, and research on the writer Pu Songling. Professor Ma’s major academic writings include A Critical Biography of Pu Songling, A Study of Creativity inStrange Tales From a Chinese Studio;From Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio to A Dream of the Red Mansions; and Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio: A Republication with New Annotations, Editing and Commentaries by Ma Ruifang. As a creative writer, Professor Ma has authored a number of novels, includingBlue Eyes, Black Eyes, Heaven’s Eye, and Feeling the Four Seasons, as well as essays and casual literary motes collected in What I’ve Seen and Heard in Academia, If I Had a Lot of Money, Fried Bread Flower, The Forum For A Hundred Schools of Thought Is a Bed For the Devil, and so on. In 2005-2007, Professor Ma served as the Host and Principal Speaker for the program: "Speaking of Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio” in the CCTV (China Central Television) series The Forum For A Hundred Schools of Thought, in 2008, she served in a similar capacity for the program "Fun Talks about A Dream of the Red Mansions " on Jiangsu Television. She has received many Shandong Province awards and prizes for research achievements, as well as the National Prize for Outstanding Novel, and the Inaugural Prize for Literary Creativity By A Woman Writer.

At Shandong University, Professor Ma offers a variety of courses, including the following:

For graduate students: “Social Science Methods”, “A History of Chinese Fiction”, “Studies in Ming- and Qing-Dynasty Drama”, “Studies in Ming- and Qing-Dynasty Prose”, “A Study of A Dream of the Red Mansions”, “A Study of Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio”, “A Light at a Crossroads, and Chinese Literature in the Eighteenth Century” (this last is a course offered to foreign students at the Ph.D level.)

In the undergraduate curriculum, Professor Ma offers: “A History of Chinese Literature (The Ming- and Qing-Dynasty Segment)”, “A Study of Creativity inStrange Tales From a Chinese Studio”, “A Study of A Dream of the Red Mansions”, and “Creativity in Prose Writing” (this last is a course for the Writers’ Class.)