Chris Hamm is a professor in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, where he teaches “modern” Chinese literature—from the 13th through the 21st centuries. His research centers on print culture, literary periodicals, and vernacular fiction, and his publications have focused on one of the most distinctive genres of Chinese popular fiction, the martial arts novel. He teaches a range of courses on Chinese literature, including both surveys of literary history and thematic courses on martial and military themes and on the role of ghosts and the supernatural in the imagining of Chinese modernity. He believes that literature provides a unique window onto a culture’s perspectives on the world, and that the study of literature in general—the study of the creative use of our most fundamental technology, language—is a powerful tool for understanding what makes us human. He is looking forward to the shared journeys of Humanities 101!
