Harlan Chambers

Field: Chinese Literature and Culture
Advisor: Lydia Liu
Email: hdc2116@columbia.edu

Harlan Chambers is a Ph.D. student affiliated with Columbia’s Institute of Comparative Literature and Society. Before coming to New York, he earned a license in Chinese language and civilization at France’s Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) as well as an MA in Asian Cultures and Languages from the University of Texas at Austin. His dissertation research interrogates the cultural practices of thinkers committed, both body and pen, to refashioning China’s agrarian world, from the land reforms of the 1940s through the formal establishment of the People’s Communes during the Great Leap Forward.  Formerly an actor in Paris, Harlan also has an avid interest in theatre and other forms of live performance. Additional research areas include Marxist thought, political economy, and histories of revolutionary internationalism.