David Palumbo-Liu
David Palumbo-Liu
Professor of Comparative Literature
Director of Comparative Literature
Director of the Asian American Studies Program
OVERVIEW:
David Palumbo-Liu’s fields of interest include social and cultural criticism, literary theory and criticism, East Asian and Asia Pacific American studies. Trained at Berkeley, and with two years’s residence in Taipei and Kyoto as a fellow of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Socities, Palumbo-Liu began as a scholar of comparative literature, literary theory and criticism, and classical Chinese literature, and has subsequently worked in the areas of ethnic studies, Pacific Rim studies, and social theory. He has published widely in each of these areas, including four books and numerous articles that have been translated into Chinese, German, French and Portuguese. His current project addresses the role of contemporary humanistic literature with regard to the instruments and discourses of globalization, seeking to discover modes of affiliation and transnational ethical thinking; with Bruce Robbins and Nirvana Tanoukhi he is also editing a collection of essays on world-systems analysis and interdisciplinary practices. Palumbo-Liu is most interested in issues regarding social theory, community, race and ethnicity, justice, globalization, and the specific role that literature and the humanities play in helping us address each of these areas. For six years he was director of the Program in Modern Thought and Literature. He has served as a member of the MLA Nominating Committee, its Program Committee, and has been named a referee and nominator for the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
EDUCATION:
1988: Ph.D. (Comparative Literature), University of California, Berkeley
News & Events
May 3, 2012
The DLCL is pleased to announce that Russell Berman, Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities,...
Oct 26, 2011
Oct 17, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht on:"How I Think (and Write) about What We Feel When We Read (...
Courses
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COMPLIT51NWin2011-12
We may "know" "who" we "are," but we are, after all, social creatures. How does our sense of self interact with those around us? How does literature provide a particular medium for not only self expression, but also for meditations on what goes into the construction of "the Self"? After all, don't we tell stories in response to the question, "who are you"? Besides a list of nouns and names and attributes, we give our lives flesh and blood in telling how we process the world. Our course focuses in particular on this question--Does this universal issue ("who am I") become skewed differently when we add a qualifier before it, like "ethnic"?
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COMPLIT146Spr2011-12
An examination of the history of Asians in America via one case history: the International Hotel in San Francisco. Background history of Asians in America, and the specifics of the I Hotel case as involving the convergence of global and local economies, urban redevelopment, and housing issues for minorities. Focus on the convergence of community and cultural production. Service learning component involving community work at the Manilatown Heritage Foundation in San Francisco. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center).
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COMPLIT110NSpr2011-12
When one asks: what is a classic? one expects the title of a 'big' novel as the response. This course argues the case for the classical Chinese poetry of the author who has the rightful claim of the greatest poet in Chinese history, Du Fu (712-770). We will look at how poetry focuses on the chemistry of language—the ways words can be put together just so to create specific catalytic 'conversations' of meaning; the engineering of language—the ways specific structures build on and create certain distributions of energy and mass. We will learn to appreciate Du Fu's wit, compassion, learnedness and critical powers and to appreciate as well how poetry can illustrate the evocative and expressive power of language.
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COMPLIT11SCAut2011-12
Sophomore College Seminar. What (if anything) do supermall shoppers in the Philippines, a Filipino taxi driver in Paris, and television viewers in Nepal have to do with a legal case in Canada, two young Japanese on a pilgrimage to Graceland, and a South Asian lawyer/liquor store owner trying to reclaim his property in Uganda from where he lives, in Mississippi?\n This course uses literary narratives, films, and historical research to examine new textures of contemporary life, where "borders" seem hard-pressed to contain culture. Texts include Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu, Mira Nair's film Mississippi Masala, and M.G. Vassanji, No New Land. New forms of identity have emerged that reflect the cultural changes that have accompanied such movements. Nevertheless, we will not idealize such phenomena either; we will want also to carefully observe the binding power of nations. The result will be a finer-tuned sense of "globalization" and the "local" and the "global." \n The course emphasizes creative thinking and discussion. Students are expected to do the reading and be well prepared for every session with not only questions, but tentative answers. Each student will participate in one group presentation as their final project.
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FRENGEN369Aut2010-11
Major texts of modern literary criticism in the context of professional scholarship today. Readings of critics such as Lukács Auerbach Frye Ong Benjamin Adorno Szondi de Man Abrams Bourdieu Vendler and Said. Contemporary professional issues including scholarly associations journals national and comparative literatures university structures and career paths. Taught by Russell Berman. SAME AS COMLIT 369 GERLIT 369 FRENGEN 369. Professor: Russell Berman
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COMPLIT146Aut2010-11
An examination of the history of Asians in America via one case history—the International Hotel in San Francisco. Course presents a short background history of Asians in America and the specifics of the I Hotel case as involving the convergence of global and local economies urban redevelopment and housing issues for minorities. Focus on the convergence of community and cultural production. Service learning component comprises 50% of the course with community work at the Manilatown Heritage Foundation in SF.
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COMPLIT369Aut2010-11
Major texts of modern literary criticism in the context of professional scholarship today. Readings of critics such as Lukács Auerbach Frye Ong Benjamin Adorno Szondi de Man Abrams Bourdieu Vendler and Said. Contemporary professional issues including scholarly associations journals national and comparative literatures university structures and career paths.
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GERLIT369Aut2010-11
Major texts of modern literary criticism in the context of professional scholarship today. Readings of critics such as Lukács Auerbach, Frye, Ong, Benjamin, Adorno, Szondi, de Man, Abrams, Bourdieu, Vendler, and Said. Contemporary professional issues including scholarly associations, journals, national and comparative literatures, university structures, and career paths.
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COMPLIT101Win2010-11
In starting to answer the question “What is Literature?” we will assume that the responses from different cultures at different points in history have varied. But to make this investigation more manageable given our commitment to exploring this question in a broad global manner we will add a word—“what is literature for?” We will be specifically interested in how various critics and authors from different eras and different parts of the globe have considered how literature as a traditional cultural form can or perhaps cannot help sustain societies faced with concrete historical crises—war revolution colonization. How has the aesthetic work of verbal art been seen to offer the possibility of continuity in the face of radical change? What if anything can be continued? How does art perhaps aid us in accommodating change? GER: DB-Hum WIM
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COMPLIT41QSpr2010-11
Preference to sophomores. What is meant by ethnic literature? How is ethnic writing different from non-ethnic writing or is there such a thing as either? How does ethnicity as an analytic perspective affect the way literature is read by ethnic peoples? Articles and works of fiction; films on ethnic literature and cultural politics. How ethnic literature represents the nexus of social historical political and personal issues. GER: DB-Hum EC-AmerCul
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ITALGEN369Aut2010-11
Major texts of modern literary criticism in the context of professional scholarship today. Readings of critics such as Lukács Auerbach Frye Ong Benjamin Adorno Szondi de Man Abrams Bourdieu Vendler and Said. Contemporary professional issues including scholarly associations journals national and comparative literatures university structures and career paths. Taught by Russell Berman. SAME AS COMLIT 369 GERLIT 369 FRENGEN 369. Professor: Russell Berman
