Rivi Handler-Spitz
Rivi Handler-Spitz studies, teaches, writes and draws about Chinese literature, comparative literature, and early modern (16-18th c.) cultural and intellectual history. She has studied modern and classical Chinese in Mainland China and Taiwan, as well as at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, where she also studied French and Latin. Before joining the faculty at Macalester, she taught courses on Chinese language and literature, world literature, and comparative literature at Brown University and Middlebury College.
Current Projects
Rivi is currently researching, writing, and drawing a book-length graphic narrative on the international and racial history of Chinese script reform. One chapter, , appeared in (Columbia University Press, 2024).
Other recent and forthcoming work explores the ethical dimensions of teacher-student relationships in late imperial China as depicted in Neo-Confucian 語錄 yulu, texts that record conversations between teachers and students.
Public Scholarship in Graphic Narrative Format
- Inside Higher Ed. Sept. 26, 2025.
- Aug. 20, 2018.
Books
- (University of Washington Press, 2017).
- (Columbia University Press, 2016). Co-edited with Haun Saussy and Pauline Lee.
- (University of Washington Press, 2021). Co-edited with Haun Saussy and Pauline Lee.?
Fellowships and Grants
2024-2025
2023-2026
2023-2024
2020-2021
Interviews
(in Mandarin)
.
Courses Taught at Macalester
- China at the Dawn of Globalization
- Cramming for the Exam: Education in Chinese Literature and History
- Opulence and Decadence: China, Europe, and the Early Modern World?
- Asian Humanities: Adaptations and Appropriations
- Literature and Social Reform in Modern China
- Masterpieces of Chinese Literature
- Teachers and Students
- The Art of Writing in China
- China on the Map
- Literature and the Arts of Empire?
- Women, Warriors, Secrets, and Snakes
- Chinese 101
- Classical Chinese