{"id":1708,"date":"2024-08-26T06:47:52","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T06:47:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1.jpg"},"modified":"2026-04-13T08:59:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T08:59:03","slug":"profile-pic-harper-1","status":"inherit","type":"attachment","link":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/faculty\/profile-pic-harper-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Prof. Elizabeth Harper (Assistant Professor)"},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"class_list":["post-1708","attachment","type-attachment","status-inherit","hentry"],"description":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Elizabeth (Beth) Harper<\/strong>
\nMA, Sinology, SOAS, University of London (2018)
\nPhD, Comparative Literature and Renaissance Studies, Yale University (2016)
\nInternational Chinese Language Program, National Taiwan University (2014)
\nMPhil, European Literature and Culture, Cambridge University (2008)
\nMA, Classics, Cambridge University (2007)
\nAssistant Professor<\/p>\n

PROFILE<\/strong><\/p>\n

I work across premodern European and Chinese literature and theory, with particular interests in tragedy, lyric, eco-criticism, psychoanalysis, and comparative poetics. My first book Nothing But Time: a child-centred theory of tragedy from Euripides to Racine reframes the European tragic tradition as a meditation on failed futurity. My second book project Mountains, Gardens and the Good Life: Ecological Encounters in Greco-Roman and Chinese Poetics<\/em> examines how natural environments in the literary cultures of ancient China and the Latin West interact with the lyric form to craft an art of life. Recent work has appeared in Shakespeare, English Studies, postmedieval, Comparative Literature: East & West, The Journal of East-West Thought<\/em>, the Journal of World Literature<\/em> and History of Humanities<\/em>. A committed premodern comparatist, I have undergone training in Latin, Ancient Greek, French, German, Italian and Spanish, as well as classical and modern Chinese.<\/p>\n

In Fall 2025, I was a visiting fellow in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. I have given recent invited lectures for Cambridge University\u2019s Department of Classics, Edinburgh University\u2019s World Philosophies series, and for the Academy of Athens. Prior to my appointment in Comparative Literature, I held a post-doctoral fellowship in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at HKU. I have also held a Yale-China Guizishan fellowship at China Central Normal in Wuhan, a teaching fellowship at the \u00c9cole normale sup\u00e9rieure in Lyon, and a researcher-in-residency at the \u00c9cole normale sup\u00e9rieure in Paris.<\/p>\n

I have been the recipient of numerous grants and awards to support my research and language training including the H.P. Kraus Fellowship in Early Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; The Elizabethan Club of Yale University Essay Prize; The Richard U. Light Fellowship at Yale University; the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University; the HSBC Scholarship for a fully-funded MA in Sinology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; a Hong Kong UGC Early Career Scheme Award. I have also been an invited delegate at the Yenching Global Symposium, Peking University; Harvard University\u2019s Institute for World Literature; and the Daoist Philosophy Summer School at Beijing Normal University.<\/p>\n

RESEARCH INTERESTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00b7 Comparative Premodern Literature and Philosophy (Chinese and European)
\n\u00b7 Tragedy; epic; lyric<\/p>\n

PUBLICATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Journal articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2026. \u201cFinding new angles to enter reality: Daoist aesthetics in Virginia Woolf\u2019s To The Lighthouse<\/em> (1927)\u201d, forthcoming in English Language Notes<\/em>. <\/p>\n

2024. \u201cEast-West Cross-Cultural Encounters of the Lyric: Horace (BCE 65-8) and Tao Yuanming (CE 365-427)<\/a>\u201d, Journal of World Literature<\/em> 9.2: 186-206.<\/p>\n

2024. \u201cQuo vadis, Comparative Environmental Humanities?<\/a>\u201d (with Tristan Brown), History of Humanities<\/em> 9.1: 99-113.<\/p>\n

2023. \u201cMountains, Meaning, Mediation: Petrarch\u2019s \u2018Ascent to Mont Ventoux\u2019 (1336) and the ecological imagination of classical Chinese poetry<\/a>\u201d, in postmedieval<\/em> 14: 647-667.<\/p>\n

2020. \u201c\u2018Do not allow an empty goblet to face the moon\u2019: lyrical materialities in the drinking poems of Li Bai \u674e\u767d\uff08701-762\uff09and Du Fu \u675c\u752b(712-770)<\/a>\u201d, \u201cContract Zones: Fur\/Flesh\/Fabric\/Fieldstone\u201d, postmedieval<\/em> 11.1: 57-67.<\/p>\n

2019. \u201cThe early modern European (non) reception of the Zhuangzi \u838a\u5b50 text<\/a>\u201d, the Journal of East-West Thought<\/em>, 4.9: 23-37.<\/p>\n

2019. \u201c\u201cA disease that\u2019s in my flesh which I must needs call mine\u201d: Lear, Macbeth and the Fear of Futurity<\/a>\u201d, English Studies<\/em>, 100.6: 604-626.<\/p>\n

2019. \u201cEast-West Theories of Tragedy: Transcultural Hauntings in Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet<\/em> and Ji Junxiang\u2019s \u7eaa\u541b\u7965 Zhaoshi guer \u8d75\u6c0f\u5b64\u513f<\/em> (The Orphan of Zhao<\/em>)<\/a>\u201d, Comparative Literature: East & West, 3.1: 38-52.<\/p>\n

2017. \u201c\u2018And men ne\u2019er spend their fury on a child\u2019 \u2013 Killing Children in Shakespeare\u2019s Early Histories<\/a>\u201d, Shakespeare<\/em>, 13.3: 193-209.<\/p>\n

Book chapters:<\/strong><\/p>\n

2027. \u201cOld trees and luxuriant forests: how the concept of the miniature garden (pen jing<\/em> \u76c6\u666f) imparts a philosophy of life\u201d, commissioned for Festschrift in honour of Professor Bernhard Fuehrer, eds. William Blythe and Oliver Hargrave, Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n

2027. \u201cLi Bai\u2019s \u674e\u767d (701-762) \u2018Transcendent Palm tea\u2019: tea-drinking, vibrant matter and a classical Chinese conception of the good life\u2019, forthcoming in Thinking With Tea<\/em>, ed. Anttoni Kuusela, Brill. <\/p>\n

2026. \u201cLabour, Leisure, Inner Freedom: Figuring the Gardener in early Chinese and Latin texts\u201d, forthcoming in Comparative Explorations: New Perspectives on Ancient Worlds<\/em>, ed. Jingyi Jenny Zhao and Arthur Harris, Cambridge University Press.<\/p>\n

2026. \u201cClassical Latin and Chinese Encounters of the Lyric<\/a>.\u201d Comparative Literature and China: Methods and Perspectives<\/em>. Edited by Longxi Zhang and Sheldon Lu. Brill: 33-52.<\/p>\n

COURSES TAUGHT<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\u00b7 CLIT 1008 Ways of Reading: an Introduction to the Theory of Literature
\n\u00b7 CLIT 2008 World, Text, Critic
\n\u00b7 CLIT 2102 The Tragic Imagination
\n\u00b7 CLIT 2109 Mountains, Gardens, and the Good Life: Environmental Encounters in Greco-Roman and Chinese Thought
\n\u00b7 CLIT 3021 Advanced Studies in Theory: Reading with the Ancients
\n\u00b7 CLIT 3028 Modern theory \/ ancient texts<\/p>\n

Lectures available on YouTube<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cHow gardening invites philosophy\u201d, the Edinburgh World Philosophies Series, The University of Edinburgh : https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-rI2v-Lvkyw<\/a><\/p>\n"},"caption":{"rendered":"

Prof. Elizabeth Harper<\/p>\n"},"alt_text":"","media_type":"image","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","media_details":{"width":956,"height":960,"file":"2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1.jpg","sizes":{"thumbnail":{"file":"profile-pic-HARPER-1-150x150.jpg","width":150,"height":150,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1-150x150.jpg"},"medium":{"file":"profile-pic-HARPER-1-300x300.jpg","width":300,"height":300,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1-300x300.jpg"},"medium_large":{"file":"profile-pic-HARPER-1-768x771.jpg","width":768,"height":771,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1-768x771.jpg"},"twentyseventeen-thumbnail-avatar":{"file":"profile-pic-HARPER-1-100x100.jpg","width":100,"height":100,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1-100x100.jpg"},"full":{"file":"profile-pic-HARPER-1.jpg","width":956,"height":960,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","source_url":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1.jpg"}},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":96,"source_url":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/profile-pic-HARPER-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/attachment"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/complit.hku.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1708"}]}}