Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies
Tamara Chin works on comparative approaches to antiquity, with a focus on: Han dynasty and early Chinese texts; the Afro-Eurasian "Silk Road"; historical narrative; and with broader interests in classical reception; and in economic, environmental, and kinship studies.
She received her BA from Harvard College in Classics and Literature and PhD from UC Berkeley in Comparative Literature (classical Chinese, Greek, Latin).
She is currently completing two books: a monograph on the modern historiography of ancient contact and exchange entitled The Silk Road Idea: A History of Connected History, and a sourcebook of original translations, Readings in Early Chinese Economic Thought.
Her first book, Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination (Harvard, 2014) received the American Comparative Literature Association Harry Levin Prize, Honorable Mention for the Association of Asian Studies Joseph Levenson Pre-1900 China Book Prize, International Convention of Asia Scholars Ground-Breaking Subject Matter Accolade.
