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 focuses on cultural mobilization projects from the Yan’an period through the Cultural Revolution. He aims to investigate how, over the course of this period, various cultural forms (literary, visual, performance, etc.) contributed to and complicated China’s revolutionary project of building a “new society.” Formerly an actor in Paris, Harlan also has an avid interest in theatre and other forms of live performance. Additional research areas include late Qing radical thought, Sino-soviet cultural exchange, and critical theory.