Jinyu Liu Receives Mellon Foundation Fellowship

By tom.elliott@nyu.edu
04/07/2011

Jinyu Liu, associate professor of classical studies at DePauw University, and a 2007-2008 Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW, is one of the recipients of a New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The award will fund innovative cross-cultural research on the impact of Greek and Roman classical works on the intellectual history of China. Based on a systematic investigation of the dissemination and reception of Graceo-Roman classics in late imperial and modern China, this project explores the roles Graeco-Roman antiquity played in the Chinese discourses on the value of classical traditions, both Chinese and non-Chinese, and strategies of constructing and appropriating the West in the context of China’s tormenting journey towards the formation of its modern culture.

This project represents a research direction that is distinctive from Jinyu Liu’s past scholarship, which focused on Latin inscriptions and Roman socio-economic history. The Fellowship will allow her to receive extra disciplinary training in languages, Modern Chinese History, Translation Theory, and Postcolonialism, and enable her to redirect her scholarly career into an area that allows for greater interdisciplinary inquiry. In 2011-2012, she will be based in Beijing as a visiting professor at Peking University. In 2012-2013, she will be resident in New York and taking various courses at Columbia University.