Lu Kou

Lu Kou serves as Assistant Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures at Columbia University. Previously, he held positions as Assistant Professor of Chinese at Bard College (2019-2022) and Visiting Assistant Professor at Williams College (2018-2019).

His educational background includes:

• BA: Peking University (2010)
• MA: Harvard University (2012)
• PhD: Harvard University (2018)

Specializing in premodern Chinese literature, Professor Kou's research centers on medieval Chinese literary culture, poetic theory, historical writing practices, and comparative frameworks between China's Middle Period and medieval Europe. His current book projects investigate rhetorical strategies in early medieval political discourse (War of Words: Courtly Exchange, Rhetoric, and Political Culture in Early Medieval China) and the intersection of bureaucratic systems with poetic representations of labor (Locked Seal, Heart of Poetry: Bureaucracy and the Representation of Work in Medieval Chinese Poetry, 400-900 CE).

His recent publications reveal consistent thematic focus on political legitimacy, cross-dynastic communication, and cultural production within China's medieval court contexts. The articles demonstrate methodological rigor in analyzing spatial politics in Tang poetry, musical orthodoxy as imperial spectacle during the Sui Dynasty, and epistolary warfare in Northern Wei diplomacy, collectively advancing understanding of how literary forms shaped political reality in premodern East Asia.