Professor Zhang Letian is the Director of the Contemporary Chinese Social Life Data Center at the Fudan Development Institute. He was the founding Vice Dean of the School of Social Development and Public Policy at Fudan University and serves as the President of the Cultural Anthropology Division of the Shanghai Anthropological Society. Since 2012, he has been the Chinese Director of the Fudan-UCLA Joint Research Center for Social Life. He also served as the Founding Chinese President of the Global China Academy in the UK (2013-2017). In 2018, he initiated the establishment of the International Alliance for the Co-construction and Sharing of Contemporary Chinese Social Life Data.  He became an academic advisor for the UN Pacific Region Development and Education Organization in 2022.

His authored works include Farewell to Ideals: A Study of the People’s Commune System (1998, awarded the 2010 Excellent Work Award by the first Lu Xueyi Sociology Development Fund, the only individual work awarded from publications between 1977-2000), The Realm of Self (1989), and No. 12 Xinma Road: From Yiwu to the World (2023). His co-authored works include Social and Cultural Changes in Contemporary Northern Zhejiang Villages (1995), Fundamentals of Social Work (2003), The Cultural Transformation of Migrant Workers in the City (2011), and Symbiotic Economy (1962-1982): Agricultural Management During the People’s Commune Period (2019). He co-edited Revolutionary Writings: A Village Cadre’s Work Journal (Volumes 1 & 2) (2019) and was the chief editor of Introduction to Social Work (1997).

Since 2008, he has also been the chief editor of the Fudan-Harvard Contemporary Anthropology Series, which has published twelve books, including The Individualization of Chinese Society, The Weight of Morality: In the Face of Impermanence and Crisis, How to Take Field Notes, Anthropologists in the Field: Case Studies in Participant Observation, Stories of Pain: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition, Little Things: The Transformation of Toys and American Childhood, “The Self” in China: The Rise of the Individual in Modern Chinese Society, Neighbors in Tokyo, and Brothers Are Not Equal. Additionally, he edited and published the Chinese Virtues in Folk Letters series (5 volumes) in 2017.

In 2018, he co-edited publish three English-language books with Yunxiang Yan and others and publish by Brill Publishers in the Netherlands.: Chronicles of Contemporary Chinese Social Life, Personal Letters between Lu Qingsheng and Jiang Zhenyuan, 1961-1986, and Work Journals of Zhou Shengkang, 1961-1982. His co-translated works include Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics (1997), and he also translated Philosophical Anthropology (2000). In addition, he has published around 100 academic papers.

张乐天教授，复旦发展研究院当代中国社会生活资料中心主任，曾任复旦大学社会发展与公共政策学院创始副院长，上海人类学会文化人类学分会会长。自2012年起担任复旦-UCLA社会生活联合研究中心中方主任。曾任英国全球中国学术院中方创院院长（2013-2017），2018年发起成立当代中国社会生活资料共建共享国际联盟。并于2022年担任联合国太平洋地区发展与教育组织学术顾问。

著有《告别理想——人民公社制度研究》（1998年，该书获2010年首届陆学艺社会学发展基金优秀著作奖，是1977-2000年间唯一获奖的个人专著）、《自我的境界》（1989）、《新马路12号——从义乌走向世界》（2023）。合著包括《当代浙北乡村的社会文化变迁》（1995）、《社会工作基础知识》（2003）、《进城农民工文化人格的嬗变》（2011）、《共生经济（1962-1982）——人民公社时期的农业经营》（2019）。合编有《革命的书写：一个大队干部的工作笔记（上下）》（2019）；主编《社会工作概论》（1997）。自2008年起，主编复旦-哈佛当代人类学丛书，已出版了《中国社会的个体化》《道德的重量：在无常和危机前》《如何做田野笔记》《人类学家在田野：参与观察中的案例分析》《疼痛的故事：苦难、治愈与人的境况》《小玩意：玩具与美国人童年世界的变迁》《“自我”中国：现代中国社会中个体的崛起》《邻里东京》《兄弟并不平等》等十二本。此外，他还于2017年编辑并出版了《民间书信里的中华美德》系列丛书（共5本）。

2018年，他与阎云翔等人合作编辑了三本英文著作并在荷兰布里尔出版社出版：《Chronicles of Contemporary Chinese Social Life》《Personal Letters between Lu Qingsheng and Jiang Zhenyuan, 1961-1986》和《Work Journals of Zhou Shengkang, 1961-1982》。合译作品包括《审美经验与文学解释学》（1997），译著《哲学人类学》（2000）。此外，他还发表了约100篇学术论文。