Princeton Professor Receives Tenure

Wai-yee S. Li, an expert in ancient Chinese historical narratives, will join the Department of East Asian Studies (EAS) as a tenured professor in September.

"She is young and brilliant and has something that we didn't have"--expertise on this kind of historical narratives, said Peter K. Bol, professor of Chinese history and chair of the EAS department.

Li, now an associate professor in Princeton's East Asian Studies department, said her research experiences drew her to teaching.

"I like the materials I work on and want to spend time on them, and teaching and writing seem to be the logical components of it," Li said.

She added that she was looking forward to coming to Harvard. "I love Princeton too, but I think it will be a good move," she said.

The addition of Li to Harvard's small EAS staff, combined with the recently announced tenure of Wilt L. Idema, a professor at the Netherlands' University of Leiden, means the department can expand the content and format of its courses, Bol said.

"I think that [Li's tenure] is an important and valuable move for the department, and it allows us to think creatively about new courses and new approaches," Bol said.

"Because we've always been so pressed for Faculty in the EAS department, now we're able to do more for the students than we were able to do before," he said.

Alexei K. Ditter, a graduate student who works with Li at Princeton, praised Li's approach to teaching.

"She knows the material back and forth, and she's very good at letting students connect to the material in their own ways," he said. "She's one of the best teachers I've ever had."

A noted scholar on Chinese literature and history, Li was a junior fellow at Harvard from 1990 to 1993, and has also taught at the University of Illinois and the University of Pennsylvania.

After receiving her B.A. from the University of Hong Kong in 1982, Li earned her Ph.D. at Princeton in 1987.

Her book on narrative structures in early Chinese historiography will be published later this year.

"The book is about developing an understanding about how events were strung together," Li said. "It is an intellectual history and a study of historiography that develops a model for how the early Chinese wrote history."

Her 1993 book, Enchantment and Disenchantment : Love and Illusion in Chinese Literature, explores the concepts of love and waking up from illusions. In it, Li examines Chinese poetry from the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C.E.

Li will begin teaching at Harvard in September 2000. This weekend, the University will fly her to Cambridge to attend a department meeting about the curriculum for the next decade.