Nicole Roldan

Filed Under: recent-phds

Constantine Lignos

Constantine Lignos

Field: Sino-Tibetan History & Religion
Advisor: Gray Tuttle and Jacob Dalton (UC Berkeley)
Email: cjl2212@columbia.edu

Constantine’s research focuses on the history of public ritual performance in Tibet and its Mongol and Manchu adoption in the borderlands.  He is interested in the transference of religious ritual performance (particularly ‘cham/‘chams, the masked monastic dance) to the social and political spheres during the ascendence of the Fifth Dalai Lama and the establishment of the Ganden Phodrang.  More broadly, his project explores the relationship between public ritual and sacral rulership to reconsider the nature of the “theatre state.” He is also compiling a glossary of Tibetan terms relevant to the LGBTQ community. Previously, he received his MA in Tibetan Studies from Columbia and his MA in Performance Studies from NYU Tisch.

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Yilun Li

Yilun Li

Field: Chinese Media, Cinema, and Science

Advisor: Ying Qian

Email: yl4587@columbia.edu

Yilun Li is a Ph.D. student in Chinese Media, Cultural, and Science Studies at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures (EALAC). He is pursuing a graduate certificate in Comparative Media through the Center for Comparative Media (CCM), and he is affiliated with the Center for Science and Society. He holds a B.A. from Tsinghua University in China and an M.A. in Film and Media Studies from Columbia University.

His research examines how communication technologies, scientific knowledge, and media cultures intersect in shaping concepts, practices, and imaginaries of (inter)national development, biopolitical governance, and social organization, with a particular emphasis on the history of cybernetics and systems thinking as well as their ramifications in distinct epistemic, material, and media configurations. Broad interests include: comparative media history and theory; history of science and philosophy of technology; history of Chinese cinema and media; documentary and nontheatrical cinema; and the intersection of arts and sciences.

His academic writing has been published in journals such as Dianying Yishu (Film Art). He has curated the exhibition and series of film screenings and discussions Working with Harun Farocki: The Labor of Images and the Distribution of the Sensible – Voices from China at CACHE Space in Beijing, a retrospective of essay films, experimental documentary, and artists’ moving image in China from the mid-2010s to mid-2020s. He also worked as a filmmaker and producer in China.

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Melissa Li

Melissa Li

Field: Japanese Literature
Advisor: Haruo Shirane
Email: gl2595@columbia.edu

Melissa Li is a Ph.D. student in premodern Japanese literature. During her graduate studies, she intends to untangle the theatrical experience of late Edo kabuki through literary analysis, theatre criticism and cultural studies. She is interested in the duality of kabuki theatre, both as a form of entertainment to be performed and consumed, and an agency to shape commoners’ reading preferences, dramatize circulating texts, and further construct a new communal identity of Edo that overlaid the city’s previously shared historical memories centered on samurai and household. Her current project engages with the continuities and transformations in the dramaturgy of 19 th -century Edo kabuki, through a comparative study of representative sewamono (contemporary-themed) plays by Tsuruya Nanboku IV, Segawa Jokō III, and Kawatake Mokuami. Melissa received her B.S. in Applied Mathematics from UCLA in 2015.

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