Lydia H. Liu, the Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities, has been appointed the Director of Columbia University’s Institute for Comparative Literature and Society.
The Institute for Comparative Literature and Society (ICLS) provides institutional support for cross-disciplinary and cross-regional comparative work, acknowledging the force of recent changes in the humanities, the social sciences, law, architecture, and the arts.
Professor Liu’s research has focused on cross-cultural exchange in global history; the movement of words, theories, and artifacts across national boundaries; and the evolution of writing, textuality, and technology. She is also the founding Director of Tsinghua-Columbia Center for Translingual and Transcultural Studies (CTTS) at Tsinghua University in Beijing to promote international collaboration and interdisciplinary research.
Professor Liu received her PhD from Harvard (1990). Before joining Columbia in 2006, she was the Helmut F. Stern Professor in Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan (2002-2006) and the Catherine and William L. Magistretti Distinguished Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California-Berkeley.
