Field: Modern Chinese literature and culture
Advisor: Lydia Liu
Email: yan.l@columbia.edu
Yan Liu (刘衍) is a Ph.D. student in modern Chinese literature and culture. His research probes the entanglements between art, literature, and politics, with a focus on the Chinese Revolution in the twentieth century, the cultural Cold War in the Sinophone world, and the political history of China’s avant-garde movements.
Field: Chinese History
Advisors: Robert Hymes and Zhaohua Yang
Email: xl3020@columbia.edu
Xinzhi is a Ph.D. student in pre-modern Chinese history, he studies the political, intellectual, and religious history of the Song dynasty. His primary research focuses on the development of the Song emperorship system, the evolving roles of emperors and those high officials, the changing nature of the imperial-subjects relationships, also how Song emperors were able to position themselves above religious hierarchies through political maneuvers on the one hand and ideological reframing of religion on the other hand.
Xinzhi was born in the ancient capital city of the Song- Kaifeng, in Henan Province of China, and grew up in Flushing, New York. Xinzhi received his BA in History and International Relations from Syracuse University in 2020 and his MA in EALAC from Columbia in 2022.
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.
