Nicole Roldan

Joanna Suwen Lee-Brown 李素文

Joanna SW Lee-Brown 李素文

Field: Modern Chinese Literature

Advisor: Lydia H. Liu

Joanna Lee-Brown is a PhD candidate in modern Chinese literature, affiliated with the Institute of Comparative Literature and Society. Her dissertation explores the shifting relationship between global Islam, socialism, and Third World internationalism in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the 1950s to the present. It asks if religion is compatible with global emancipatory left-wing politics by tracing Chinese Muslims’ historical attempts to theorize and narrativize the relationship between Islam, anti-imperialism, and socialism through translingual writing and media practices. She works primarily with Chinese and Arabic in her research.Joanna has conducted archival research in both China and Egypt. Her research has been supported by the Social Sciences Research Council Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC-IDRF), as well as by the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life (IRCPL) and Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) at Columbia University. Her study of Arabic at the prestigious Center for Arabic Study in Cairo (CAASIC) at the American University of Cairo (AUC) was supported by the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship. She has presented her research at the Association of Asian Studies (AAS) and Middle East Studies Association (MESA) annual conferences, as well as at workshops at Columbia University and Lingnan University in Hong Kong.Joanna believes that education in the humanities remains critical to responding to the crises of our times. Competitively selected to be a Columbia GSAS Teaching Scholar, she is currently teaching her own course, “Religion and Revolution in Modern China and the World”, at Columbia University.

You can learn more about Joanna at https://joannaleebrown.com/ and contact her at jsl2230@columbia.edu.

Faculty Interview:

Saving Endangered Languages

Lydia Liu’s interview on NPR about her co-edited book Global Language Justice

Global Language Justice explores the socioeconomic transformations that both accelerate the decline of minoritized languages and give rise to new possibilities through population movement, unexpected encounters, and technological change. The book also critically examines the concepts that are typically deployed to defend linguistic diversity, including human rights, inclusiveness, and equality. Contributors take up topics such as mapping language communities in New York City, and how Indigenous innovation challenges notions of linguistic purity.

Lydia Liu, one of the editors, discusses the book with NPR. For the full interview, please visit the Columbia News website.

Hyoseak (Stephen) Choi

Adjunct Lecturer, Postdoctoral Research Scholar at the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture

Office: 614 Kent Hall
Office Hours: F 1:00- 3:00
Email: hc2963@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Saint Mary’s University
MA: University of Toronto/Columbia University
PhD: Columbia University

Classes Taught

AHUM UN3830: Colloquium on Modern East Asian Texts
EAAS GU4150: Childhoods in Modern Japanese Literature

Research Interests

Modern Japanese Literature, Publishing Culture, Childhood, Social Theory, Translation

Stephen Choi received his PhD from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia
University in May, 2024. His research focuses on the diverse iterations of “childhood” that is represented
in literary works, as well as the role that the idea of “childhood” plays in the production, distribution,
and reception of texts. Exploring the many social and political functions of childhood utilized for
legitimating ideologies, proliferating propaganda, and promoting policies, the research aims to gain a
deeper understanding of existing socio-political narratives and consider possible future narratives that
can serve to protect actual children. He is currently working on book projects in both English and
Japanese.