Ancient

David Lurie

lurieDavid Lurie

Wm. Theodore and Fanny Brett de Bary and Class of 1941 Collegiate Professor of Asian Humanities and Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature

Office: 622 Kent Hall

Phone: (212) 854-5316

Educational Background

BA: Harvard University (’93)
MA: Columbia University (’96)
PhD: Columbia University (’01)

Classes Taught

JPNS GU4519 Introduction to Kanbun
EAAS UN2342 Mythology of East Asia
CPLS 3900 Introduction to Comparative Literature and Society
JPNS GR8040 Graduate Seminar in Premodern Japanese Literature

Research Interests

Japanese History and Literature, Technology of Language in Premodern Japan

In addition to the history of writing systems and literacy, David Lurie’s research interests include: the literary and cultural history of premodern Japan; the Japanese reception of Chinese literary, historical, and technical writings; the development of Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias; the history of linguistic thought; Japanese mythology; and world philology. Professor Lurie’s first book investigated the development of writing systems in Japan through the Heian period. Entitled Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing, it received the Lionel Trilling Award in 2012. Along with Haruo Shirane and Tomi Suzuki, he was co-editor of the Cambridge History of Japanese Literature (2015), to which he contributed chapters on myths, histories, gazetteers, and early literature in general. He is completing a new scholarly monograph, tentatively entitled The Emperor’s Dreams: Reading Japanese Mythology.

Please see his website for a complete list of publications and contributions.

Selected Publications

“Japanese Lexicography from ca. 1800 to the Present,” in The Cambridge World History of Lexicography, ed. John Considine, Cambridge University Press, 2019

“Parables of Inscription: Some Notes on Narratives of the Origin of Writing,” History and Theory 56, December 2018

Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing (Harvard University Asia Center, 2011)

“The Development of Japanese Writing,” in The Shape of Script: How and Why Writing Systems Change (SAR Press, 2012)

Agnes Hsu-Tang

Agnes Hsu-Tang

Adjunct Senior Research Scholar
Educational Background

BA: Bryn Mawr College
MA: University of Pennsylvania
PhD: University of Pennsylvania (’04)

Dr. Hsu-Tang is Chair of the board of the New-York Historical Society, the first museum in New York and one of the oldest cultural institutions in the United States that was established in 1804. Agnes is a co-founder of the Tang Center for Early China at Columbia University, Tang Center for Silk Road Studies at UC Berkeley, and Hsu-Tang Library for Classical Chinese Literature at Oxford University Press. In 2018, Dr. Hsu-Tang was appointed Distinguished Consulting Scholar at University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Dr. Hsu-Tang is an international cultural heritage policy advisor trained in archaeology and art history.  From 2006 to 2013, Agnes served on UNESCO World Heritage Centre’s scientific committees and participated on three missions to Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Western China; she spoke at international conferences on cultural heritage protection and authored a white paper on the multi-national nominations of the Qhapag Ñan and the Continental Silk Road (Chang’an to Tianshan Corridor).  From 2013 to 2014, Agnes advised President Obama’s Cultural Property Advisory Committee on the renewal of United States’ 2009 bilateral agreement with China to reduce the illicit trafficking of cultural objects. Prior to graduate studies, Agnes served under the late U.S. Ambassador James R. Lilley, a former envoy to China, Korea, and Taiwan.

Agnes studied English Literature, Classical Archaeology, and East Asian Studies at Bryn Mawr College.  In 2003, she was a Mellon fellow in History of Science at the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge University; she received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004.  Agnes taught at Brown University from 2004 to 2007 and was a post-doctoral scholar in Classics at Stanford University from 2007 to 2008.  She joined Columbia University in 2015.

Between 2008 and 2015, Agnes was actively involved in the development of several international film projects on art and archaeology.  She was the bi-lingual host and narrator of two award-winning documentary series: Mysteries of China, a 3-episode archaeology series on History Channel Asia (2011-2013), and Chineseness, a 4-episode contemporary art series on Discovery Channel Asia (2014-2015) that premiered during 2014 Art Basel Hong Kong. Her previous TV credits include “The Giant Buddha at Leshan” (2009) and “Xi’an: China’s Forgotten City” (2010) on Discovery USA, “China’s Terracotta Warriors” on PBS (2011), and Mankind: The Story of All of Us series on History Channel (2012). She is currently involved in the development of a feature film relevant to archaeology.

In addition to publications and lectures, Dr. Hsu-Tang’s recent scholarly contributions include four exhibitions: “Chinese in America: Exclusion/Inclusion” at the New-York Historical Society (2014-15), “China’s Lost Civilization: The Mystery of Sanxingdui” at the Bowers Museum (2014-15), Asia Society inaugural Triennial “We Do Not Dream Alone” (2020-21), and the New-York Historical Society’s “Dreaming Together” (2020-21). Agnes also contributed to the dramaturgy and libretto of a contemporary opera, Paradise Interrupted, which premiered at the 2015 Spoleto Festival USA and 2016 Lincoln Center Festival.  Formerly trained as a Classical musician, Dr. Hsu-Tang made her debut at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1989.

Dr. Hsu-Tang serves on the Director’s Council at the Institute of the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and is a founding advisory board member of the Artist Protection Fund at the Institute of International Education. Agnes served on the boards of the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (2013-2018) and the Peabody Institute of Archaeology at Phillips Academy Andover (2015-2018).

Agnes has been a Trustee of the New-York Historical Society since 2013, where she has chaired the Exhibitions Committee and served on the Executive and Strategic Planning Committees since 2015. Agnes was a Managing Director on the board of the Metropolitan Opera from 2014 to July 2021; she served on the Met’s Oversight Committee from 2017 to 2018 and chaired the Board Recruitment Taskforce from 2018 to 2019 and the Nominating Committee from 2018 to 2020. In addition, Agnes was the Executive Chair and Chair of the Steering Committee of Asia Society’s inaugural Triennial from 2015 to 2020.

Dr. Hsu-Tang is a recipient of New-York Historical Society’s 2018 Medal of Merit for Public Engagement; Institute of International Education’s Centennial Medal in 2019; and Asia Society Hong Kong Center’s 2021 Maestro Award for co-founding The Yellow Whistle™ campaign to combat anti-Asian American violence and xenophobia.

Select Publications

“A Tomb with A View: Axonometry in Early Chinese Cartography” in Designing Boundaries: The Exercise of the Spatial Imagination in Pre-Modern China: Shaping the Expanse (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022)

“Executive Chair’s Preface” and “Art of Virtue” in exhibition catalog We Do Not Dream Alone (Milan: Skira Editore SpA, 2021)

“Dreaming Together in a Divided World” in exhibition catalog Dreaming Together: New-York Historical Society and Asia Society (New York: New-York Historical Society, 2020)

“Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early Imperial China” in Geography, Ethnography, and Perceptions of the World from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009)

“An Emic Perspective of the Ancient Mapmaker’s Art” in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

White paper: The Exceptional Universal Value of the Road Systems in Ancient Empires: A Comparative Study of the Chinese Oasis Route of the Early Silk Road and the Qhapag Ñan (Paris: UNESCO, 2006)

Michael Como

Michael Como

Tōshū Fukami Associate Professor of Shinto Studies

Office: 307 80 Claremont
Office Hours: On leave for the fall 2020 semester
Phone: (212) 854-4144
Email: mc2575@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Harvard University (’85)
PhD: Stanford University (’00)

Classes Taught

AHUM UN1400 Colloquium on Major Texts: East Asia
RELI UN2308 East Asian Buddhism
EARL 9335 Graduate Seminar in Japanese Religion

Research Interests

Transmission and diffusion of rituals and deities to Japan, local religious traditions, urbanization and theological innovation

Michael Como’s recent research has focused on the religious history of the Japanese islands from the Asuka through the early Heian periods, with a particular focus upon the Chinese and Korean deities, rites and technological systems that were transmitted to the Japanese islands during this time. He is the author of several articles on the ritual and political consequences of the introduction of literacy, sericulture and horse-culture from the Asian sub-continent into ancient Japan. He is currently working on a new monograph that focuses upon urbanization and the materiality of performance and interpretation in Japanese religion in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Selected Publications

Medieval Shintō (co-editor with Bernard Faure and Iyanaga Nobumi, 2010)

Weaving and Binding: Immigrant Gods and Female Immortals in Ancient Japan (University of Hawaii, 2009)

Shōtoku: Ethnicity, Ritual and Violence in the Formation of Japanese Buddhism (Oxford University, 2008)