Rivi Handler-Spitz
Postdoctoral Fellow in International Humanities and Classics:
Wilbour Hall 004
Phone: +1 401 863 1489
Phone 2: +1 401 863 1267
Rebecca_Handler-Spitz@brown.edu
Biography
Rivi Handler-Spitz received her Ph.D. with honors from the University of Chicago in 2009. Her dissertation addresses themes of deception and self-contradiction in the prose writings of Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and his Chinese contemporary Li Zhi (李贄 1527-1602). By studying the authors' own statements on these topics as well as their economic, sartorial, and bibliographic contexts, she argues that the many views contending in these books echo economic instabilities affecting diverse corners of the developing early modern world and encourage readers to hone their sense of judgment.
Degrees
A.B. in Comparative Literatre. Columbia University. 1998; M.A. in Comparative Literature. The University of Chicago. 2001; Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. The University of Chicago. 2009.
Awards
Council of Graduate Studies Distinguished Dissertation Award Nominee. Department of Comparative Literature. University of Chicago. 2009.
Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fellowship for Graduate Studies for Dissertation Research and Writing. National Competition. Awarded 2007 for up to three years of dissertation research and writing.
China Times Cultural Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant. Awarded 2007 for one year of dissertation research and writing.
Vigneron Fellowship for French Studies. University of Chicago. Awarded 2007. Declined in favor of the China Times grant.
Fudan University (Shanghai, China) Dissertation Research Grant. Awarded 2007. Declined in favor of the China Times grant.
Tave Teaching Award. University of Chicago. Declined in favor of Liebmann fellowship.
Academia Sinica Pre-Doctoral Dissertation Research Grant. Academica Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. 2006-2007.
Blakemore Freeman Fellowship in Chinese. International Chinese Language Program, National Taiwan University. 2004-2005.
Harvard Yenching Dissertation Research Grant for studies in Beijing, China. Awarded 2003. Declined in favor of studies in Chicago.
Foreign Language and Area Studies Grant for study of Japanese. University of Chicago. Summer 2003.
Foreign Language Area Studies Grant for study of Chinese. International Chinese Language Program. National Taiwan University. Summer 2002.
Taipei Economic and Cultural Organization Grant for study of Chinese. International Chinese Language Program. National Taiwan University. Summers 2001 and 2002.
Century Fellowship for Graduate Studies. The University of Chicago. 2000-2006.
Princeton in Asia Intern. Fudan University, Shanghai, China. Academic year 1999-2000.
Fulbright-selected French Ministry of Education Teaching Assistantship. Lycée Vial, Nantes, France. 1998-1999.
Teaching
Handler-Spitz teaches courses on Chinese and Western prose, especially early modern personal essays, autobiographical genres (including letters, diaries, and auto-necrologies), and philosophical writings. Her course "Essaying the Essay" investigates themes of friendship and self, and explores the definition of the essay genre in Western antiquity, the Renaissance, medieval Japan, and early modern China. "Skeptical Traditions East and West" examines the philosophical arguments at the core of skepticism and traces them from their inception in Chinese and Western antiquity through their reception in their respective literary and philosophical traditions. Other courses: "Philosophical Perspectives on the Humanities" in the Core Curriculum at the University of Chicago, "The Bildungsroman East and West," (assistant-taught), language classes in Mandarin Chinese and French.