His research focus is primarily in philosophy, psychoanalysis, creative writing, and comparative literature, with an emphasis on literatures written in Chinese, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. He is especially interested in comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to literary and cultural analysis.

He is the author of Landscape’s Revenge (DeGruyter, 2018) and A Estética do Espetáculo: Cinco Teses em Walter Benjamin (NEA, 2013), winner of the Mario Pedrosa Award for Essays on Contemporary Art and Culture, awarded by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture. He has also published two award-winning novels, Samba Sem Mim (Saraiva/Benvirá, 2014) and As Noites de Hong Kong São Feitas de Neon (Gato Bravo, 2019). His recent publications include essays on Alejandra Pizarnik, Roberto Bolaño, Hilda Hilst, Clarice Lispector, Li Ziqi, as well as “Archive as Catastrophe” (Glocalism, 2021). He has a forthcoming translation of Yu Hua’s 在细雨中呼喊 from Chinese into Portuguese.

Yurgel holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Friedrich Schlegel Graduiertenschule, Freie Universität Berlin, and conducted a joint postdoctoral research fellowship with the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before joining Duke Kunshan, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Peking University.