Jinyu Liu: Research

GRANTS AND HONORS Jinyu Liu

2009-12-17T21:13:00.000-08:00

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship (2011-2014)

GLCA New Directions Initiative, Summer 2011 (summer stipend, travel fund, and funds for books)

DePauw University Faculty Fellowship, 2011-2014 (course release, research fund, and salary supplement)

Fisher Time-out (one-course release) for a research project called “Virgil in China”, Spring, 2011

Faculty Development Summer Stipend for Course Enhancement on "The (Environmental) Impact of the Roman Empire, Summer, 2010

Associate Research Fellow, ISAW (Institute of the Study of the Ancient World), NYU, 2007-2008 (on leave from DePauw)

Arthur E. and Joyce S. Gordon Fellow, Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at the Ohio State University, Summer, 2007.

David Stevenson Fellowship ($15,000; National Grant, USA): Pagan Philanthropy versus Christian Charity: “Secular” versus “religious” philanthropy from a historical perspective, 2006-2007

National Endowment of Humanities (NEH, USA) Summer Seminar on Trajan’s Column (organized by Profs. Richard Talbert and Michael Maas), American Academy at Rome, June 26-July 28, 2006

Mellon Venture Fund: Epigraphic Studies in Italy, Summer 2006

DePauw University Faculty Development Summer Stipend for New Course Development The Impact of the Roman Empire: From Augustus to Constantine, Summer 2005

Honorary external faculty member, Department of History, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, Sept. 2004-

Columbia University 1998-2004
Lane Cooper-Whiting Fellowship, 2003-2004
CAM(Center for Ancient Mediterranean) Travel Fellowship, Summer 2002
Morton Smith Fellowship, Columbia University, 2001-2002
GSAS Summer Fellowship, Columbia University 2001
President's Fellowship, Columbia Unviersity, 1999-2001, 2002-2003
Richard Hofstadter Fellowship, Columbia University, 1998-1999

Nanjing University 1989-1998
People's Scholarship (1990-1996); Guanghua Scholarship (Taiwan, 1991);
Ou Yangzao Scholarship (1992); SYLFF Scholarship (Japan,1995).

PUBLICATIONS Jinyu Liu

2009-04-07T00:03:00.000-07:00

Monograph

Collegia Centonariorum: the Guilds of Textile Dealers in the Roman West, Brill, 2009.

Review of the book in Latomus: "Ce livre, issu d’une thèse de doctorat sous la direction de W.V. Harris, présentée à l’université de Columbia, se propose de comprendre les origines, les fonctions, l’organisation et le statut social et légal des collegia centonariorum dans l’empire romain. Disons-le d’emblée, Mme Liu a pleinement atteint cet objectif et nous régale d’une étude exemplaire dont les acquis sont de première importance." (by Professor Robert Duthoy)

BMCR Review: '“What this book strives to provide is an exercise that pushed the available sources to their fuller, if not their fullest, potential” (p. 295) proclama orgogliosamente Liu. Concordiamo pienamente, considerando l’opera un vero progresso per gli studi in questo campo. Inoltre essa contiene numerosi spunti dedicati a moltissimi aspetti della vita politica,economica e sociale dell’impero romano, come ad es. la discussione (p.46) delle attestazioni molto tarde di flamines (uno divi Augusti da Corfinium addirittura dell’anno 180). La comprensione dell’antico si giova anche del riferimento a prassi medievali e persino moderne (ad es. in Canada, a p. 64, ma anche degli strazzaroli a Bologna e dei rigattieri a Firenze, p. 70); a p. 127 compare anche un paragone con l’antica Cina.'

The proofreading of the book, as mentioned by the reviewer and lamented by myself earlier, could indeed have been better.

Articles and Book Chapters

• “Pompeii and Collegia: a new appraisal of the evidence,” Ancient History Bulletin22.1-4 (2008): 53-69
• “The Economy of Endowments: the case of Roman associations,” In Koenraad Verboven, Katelijn Vandorpe and Véronique Chankowski-Sable (edd.), ‘Pistoi dia tèn technèn’. Bankers, loans and archives in the Ancient World. Studies in honour of Raymond Bogaert, Studia Hellenistica 44. Leuven, Peeters, 2008: 231-256. BMCR review.
• “The Era of Patavium Again,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (ZPE) 162 (2007): 281-289.
• “Local Governments and Collegia: a new appraisal of the evidence,” in Jean-Jacques Aubert and Zsuzsanna Várhelyi (edd.), A Tall Order: Imperialism, Law, Religion, And Society in the Ancient World, essays in honor of William V. Harris, Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 216. K. G. Saur Verlag. 2005: 279-310.
• Multiple publications in Chinese (1993-1999): topics included A Biography of Julius Caesar, The Evolution of the System of the Imperial Succession: a comparative study of the Roman and Chinese systems, The Religious Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, etc.

Book Reviews:
• Book review of “Conceiving the Empire” (Oxford, 2008), Classical Review 60.1 (2010): 227-229.
• Review of Nielson, Inge, ed. Zwischen Kult und Gesellschaft (Hephaistos 24). Camelion-Verlag, Augsburg 2007. American Journal of Archaeology (AJA) 2008.
• Review of N. TRAN, LES MEMBRES DES ASSOCIATIONS ROMAINES. LE RANG SOCIAL DES COLLEGIATI EN ITALIE ET EN GAULES, SOUS LE HAUT-EMPIRE. (École française de Rome Collection de l'École française de Rome, 367.) Roma, 2006 and F. DIOSONO, COLLEGIA. LE ASSOCIAZIONI PROFESSIONALI NEL MONDO ROMANO. Roma: Quasar, 2007. Journal of Roman Studies.
• Review of Roman Dacia: The Making of a Provincial Society. Book Review. BMCR (Bryn Mawr Classical Review), 2005.03.12.

Forthcoming:
• Trade, traders and guilds (?) in textiles: the case of Southern Gaul and Northern Italy (First-Third Centuries), Textile Workers and Their Identity.
• Clothing supply for the military: a look at the inscriptional evidence, submitted to and accepted by the volume Roman Textile and Military.
• Late Antique Fora and Public Honor in the Western Cities: Case studies, submitted to Shifting Frontiers 8.
• Chapter on Collegia in the Cambridge Companion to the City of Rome, Cambridge University Press, due 2009.
• Book Contract with Duckworth, due 2011, Graeco-Roman Classics in China.
• Entries in Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social History
• Book Contract with Beijing (Peking) University Press: Introduction to Roman Studies.
• The Egyptian Associations in the First Century AD. In the Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Ancient History, Shanghai, China, August 17-21, 2005.

Professional Presentations and Invited Lectures

2009-04-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

• Honor or Embarrassment: a case study of inscribed public benefaction, Annual Meeting of the Indiana Classical Association, April 15, 2011
• AE 1998. 282: A Case Study of Public Benefaction and Local Politics, the First North American Epigraphical Congress. San Antonio. January 5, 2011.
• The Politics of Public Space and Public Honor in the Western Cities, invited talk (delivered in Chinese), Fudan University, Shanghai, China, June 18th, 2009.
• Trade, traders and guilds (?) in textiles: the case of southern Gaul and northern Italy (First-Third Centuries). At the conference “Work and Identity: The agents of textile production and exchange in the Roman period”, Hallstatt, Austria, June 7th, 2009.
• Fora and Public Honor in the Western Cities in the Fourth Century: Case Studies, “Shifting Frontier in Late Antiquity VIII”, Indiana Univeristy, Bloomington, April 6, 2009.
• Textile Economy in the Western Empire in the First Three Centuries, SBL (Society of Biblical Literature), Boston, Nov. 2008.
• Exhortations in Greek and Latin Honorific Inscriptions: a tale of difference, CAMWS, Tucson, April 18, 2008.
• Respondent on the panel Six Foreign Classicists: Teaching Challenges and Successful Strategies, CAMWS, Tucson, April 18, 2008.
• Inscribed Exempla: Honors, Exhortations (or the Avoidance of them), and Latin Epigraphic Culture, Classics Department, Georgetown University, Jan. 14, 2008.
• Exploring the Graeco-Roman Roots of the Western Philanthropy, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), Georgia, Atlanta, Nov., 2007.
• Inscribed Exempla: a Comparison of Greek and Latin Honorific Inscriptions, XIII International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, Oxford, Sept., 2007.
• A lecture on Latin Epigraphy for the Epigraphic Summer Seminar (principal professor: Fritz Graf), Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at the Ohio State University, August 9, 2007.
• Inscribed Generosity: continuity and changes in the fourth century CE. AAH annual meeting, Princeton. May, 2007.
• Poverty and Philanthropy: The Inscriptional Evidence from the Fourth Century, CAMWS, Cincinnati, Ohio, April, 2007.
• The Dacian Wars beyond Trajan’s Column, on the panel titled “Contextualizing Trajan's Column: The 2006 NEH Summer Seminar,” CAMWS, Cincinnati, Ohio. April, 2007 (invited panelist).
• Understanding the Salt Dealers' Functions with a Grain of Salt, American Philological Association (APA) Annual Meeting. San Diego. January, 2007;
• Local Identity and the Empire: the case of Roman Patavium, University of California, Berkeley, January, 2007.
• The Chinese Translation of Graeco-Roman Classics, American Association of Ancient Historians (AAH) meeting, Stanford University May, 2006;
• Government and Private Organizations: The Functions of the Egyptian Associations in the First Century AD, CAMWS annual meeting, Florida Apr. 2006;
• The Economy of Endowments: the case of Roman associations. Banks, Loans and Financial Archives in the Ancient World international colloquium in honour of prof. em. Raymond Bogaert. Brussels – Ghent, Belgium. Thu. 26 - Sat. 28 Jan. 2006. (by invitation)
• The Era of Patavium Reconsidered. American Philological Association (APA) Annual Meeting. Montreal. Jan. 7, 2006.
• Perpetual Endowments and the Roman Associations. Faculty Research Colloquia. DePauw University. Sept. 30, 2005.
• The Egyptian Associations in the First Century AD. The Third International Conference on Ancient History. Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Aug. 17-21, 2005.
• Pompeii and collegia: New Appraisal of the Evidence. CAMWS Annual Meeting (Madison), April 1st, 2005.
• Patronage of Collegia: some aspects of the social relations and social life in the Roman cities (first century-fourth century AD), Toronto University, Cornell University, McGill University, 2004.
• Perpetual Endowments and the Socio-economic Roles of the Ancient Associations, Center for Ancient Mediterranean (CAM), Columbia University, October, 2003.
• The Collegia Dendrophorum and the Cult of Magna Mater in the Roman Empire, University of Pennsylvania, October, 2003.
• Patronage of the Roman Collegia, Classics Graduate Colloquium, Columbia University, Feb., 2003.
• Vestimenta for Lower Classes, Center for Archaeology, Columbia University, 2002.
• Homosexuality in the Roman Empire, Live @ Lerner, Lunch and Lecture: Queer Theories/Queer Histories, Columbia University, October, 2001.
• The Evolution of the System of the Imperial Succession (Roman Empire, 31 B.C.-A.D.476), International Conference in Ancient History II, Changchun, China, September 1996.
• Cato the Elder and Agricultural Economy, International Conference in Ancient History I, Tianjin, China, September 1993.

Research Jinyu Liu

2008-07-22T14:29:00.000-07:00

My dissertation research, completed at Columbia in 2004, focused on one particular type of collegia in the Roman world. In 2009, my revised dissertation was published with the title Collegia Centonariorum: The Guilds of Textile Dealers in the Roman West by Brill. Based on a thorough examination of the epigraphic, legal, and literary sources on the collegia centonariorum, this volume offers a new understanding of their origins, functions, organizations, and social and legal status in the Roman Empire. The collegia centonariorum have often been seen as the municipal fire-brigades or status groups of sorts in the Roman cities. Through a close investigation of the chronological development and geographical distribution of these collegia, their legal privileges, and the prosopographical data of members and patrons, this volume reveals a much more complex picture of their origins, characters and compositions in various regions from the first century BC to the fourth century AD. Intricately connected with the textile economy, the collegia centonariorum illustrate how elements as diverse as material demand from the military and the city of Rome, legal infrastructure, urban development, and organizations of urban-based craftsmen and tradesmen may have interfaced with each other in the Roman world. The book contains five catalogues at the end, which will be particularly useful to experts in Latin epigraphy and Roman social relations. However, in general, the book will be useful for all those interested in ancient social history, economic history, Roman Empire, Roman urbanism, Latin Epigraphy, ancient textile economy, military supply, as well as patronage and the lower classes in ancient society.

My continued interest in the ancient voluntary organizations, especially their roles in ancient social life and economy, have led to several other publications and a number of conference presentations. The publications include an article on “Local Governments and Collegia: a new appraisal of the evidence” (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde 216. K. G. Saur Verlag. 2005: 279-310); another article on “The Economy of Endowments: the case of Roman associations,” (Studia Hellenistica 44. Leuven: Peeters, 2008: 231-256); a forthcoming chapter on Collegia in Cambridge Companion to the City of Rome (edited by Paul Erdkamp); “Pompeii and Collegia: a new appraisal of the evidence” forthcoming in Ancient History Bulletin; and book reviews for the Journal of Roman Studies [98 (2008): 214-216] and the American Journal of Archaeology [113.1 (2009): 145-147]. In addition, I was invited to referee two articles related to ancient associations for the journals Classical Antiquity, and Greek, Roman and Byzantian Studies respectively.

My research has been heavily based on inscriptional evidence. In order to enhance my expertise as an epigraphist, I participated in specialized workshops such as “APA Epigraphic Seminar: Texts and Archaeological Contexts in Rome” (Montreal, January 2006) and took up a Arthur E. and Joyce S. Gordon Fellowship at the Center for Epigraphical and Palaeographical Studies at the Ohio State University in Summer, 2007. I have also expanded my research parameters by taking up a long-term project to examine the relationship/interactions between epigraphic culture, public space and local politics in the Western cities of the Roman Empire. Since the epigraphic display and the exhibition of pubic portraits was intricately connected with the benefaction/euergetic patterns in the Graeco-Roman world, this project would inevitably involve more investigation into the honorific practices, languages of honor and the evolution of private and public benefactions in the provincial context in the Roman Empire.

There have been some encouraging progresses in this new research direction of mine. In 2006-2007, I received a David Stevenson Fellowship to explore “secular” versus “religious” euergetism and philanthropy in local context in the transitional period of 4th-5th century AD. The financial support provided by the Fellowship has given me the opportunity to enlist some of our best students as Research Assistants. With their assistance and departmental and University support, I hosted a symposium on the History of Philanthropy on campus in Spring, 2007. This project has also provided a good theme for the senior seminar that I taught in Spring, 2007. In addition, the project has led to three presentations on the continuities and changes in the area of private and public benefactions in the fourth century: Exploring the Graeco-Roman Roots of the Western Philanthropy, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), Georgia, Atlanta, Nov., 2007; Inscribed Generosity: continuity and changes in the fourth century CE, AAH annual meeting, Princeton. May, 2007; Poverty and Philanthropy: The Inscriptional Evidence from the Fourth Century, CAMWS, Cincinnati, Ohio, April, 2007.

Another progress lies in my findings on the differences between Greek and Latin honorific inscriptions. I presented the results at the quiquennial International Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy at Oxford (2007), and CAMWS (Tuscon, 2008). Notably, languages of exhortations were far less prominent in Latin honorific inscriptions than in their Greek counterpart throughout history. I suggest that the Greek and Roman cities developed different mechanisms or strategies to harness “the love of honor” and turn it into positive energy. While the Greeks followed the route of openly engaging different sides in a dynamic multilateral discourse on honor and benefaction, the Romans operated on a model that avoided dragging other potential benefactors into the conversation. The display locations of the honorific inscriptions and statues are a further subject of study in this project. I have made a presentation on Late Antique Fora and Public Honor in the Western Cities: Case Studies in the eighth biennial “Shifting Frontier in Late Antiquity” conference held at Indiana University, Bloomington, in April, 2009.

A rather different research interest of mine concerns the Chinese reception of Classics. The idea of documenting the history of the Chinese translations of Graeco-Roman Classics was inspired by conversations with my Chinese colleagues at the Fudan conference as well as a private interview with a senior translator and scholar in Beijing in Summer, 2005. In May, 2006, I presented my research result at the annual conference of the Association of Ancient Historians at Stanford University. The theme of the conference was Crossing Boundaries and my paper entitled “The Chinese Translations of the Graeco-Roman classical works: a dialogue across time and space” fit in very well. This project soon became a collaborative endeavor with Professor Yung-chen Chiang in History. In March, 2007, we signed a book contract with Duckworth. Tentatively entitled Classics in China, the book manuscript is to be submitted for publication in the Classical Diaspora series edited by Sarah Annes Brown in December, 2011. As a pioneering effort, this project is significant at several levels. It will break new ground for both Classical Studies and China Studies by bringing into dialogue the two fields that seldom connect. Furthermore, it will contribute to a fuller understanding of the diasporic journeys of the Graeco-Roman antiquities in an “alien” culture.