Three Columbia Scholars Named to Inaugural Scholar-in-Residence Program
The inaugural group of scholars-in-residence include Wolfgang R. Mann, Lauran Hartley and Tenggeer Hao.
Three Columbia University scholars will visit Columbia Global Centers | Beijing during the 2023-24 academic year as the awardees of the Center’s Scholar-in-Residence program.
The cohort blends Columbia faculty and doctoral students who will delve into a variety of intriguing topics, including translations and adaptations of ancient Greek philosophical text into Chinese, modern Tibetan literature in China, and indigenous theory, aesthetics, and philosophy in Chinese film media.
The program will provide Columbia scholars with rich opportunities to immerse themselves in the vibrant academic environment of Beijing, a city renowned for its rich cultural heritage and intellectual vibrancy.
By residing at the Beijing Center, they will have direct access to local resources, scholars, and institutions, facilitating meaningful scholarly partnerships and collaboration with Chinese academics and experts.
The three scholars include the following. Interested scholars can still apply to the program for the 2023-24 academic year here.
Wolfgang R. Mann
Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy
Project Title: Translations and Adaptations of Ancient Greek Philosophical Text into Chinese
Professor Mann joined the Columbia Philosophy Department in 1992. He is the author of The Discovery of Things: Aristotle’s Categories and Their Context (Princeton, 2000), and he recently co-edited, with James Allen, Eyjólfur Emilsson, and Benjamin Morison, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, vol. 40: Essays in Memory of Michael Frede (2011).
Lauran Hartley
Director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program; Associate Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Project Title: Modern Tibetan Literature in China
Hartley also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in Tibetan Literature for the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and previously taught courses on Tibetan literature and religion at Indiana and Rutgers universities. In addition to coediting the book Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change (Duke University Press, 2008) and serving as Inner Asian Book Review Editor for the Journal of Asian Studies, she has also published several literary translations and articles on Tibetan intellectual history. Her current research focuses on literary production and discourse from the 18th century to the present.
Tenggeer Hao
Ph.D. student in modern Chinese literature and cinema at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Project Title: Indigenous Theory, Aesthetics, Philosophy in Chinese Film Media
Tenggeer Hao is a Ph.D. student in modern Chinese literature and cinema. His academic interests include modern and contemporary China, critical theory, and Buddhisms. In a close reading of several Chinese films, his M.A. thesis theoretically examines the notion of “coming out of the closet” in terms of representation, togetherness, and ethics of liberation. This has further brought him to the current project of formulating a Buddhist film theory. It explores how some filmmakers theorize both about and through filmmaking, and how such theorizations would speak to Buddhist understandings of visuality, desire, emptiness, temporality, and compassion. Tenggeer is also a documentary filmmaker, interested in documenting the camera’s encounter with such social units as a family, a school, or a monastery in their geographical and sociopolitical environments.