Karen Thornber

Karen Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard, serves as Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Bok Center. She is also President of Phi Beta Kappa Alpha Iota of Massachusetts.

A Harvard Ph.D. and Princeton A.B., Professor Thornber is a cultural historian and scholar of Asian literature and media working primarily in the fields of environmental humanities; medical and health humanities; gender justice; and transculturation (e.g., translation studies, world literature, comparative literature). Professor Thornber conducts research in more than a dozen Asian and European languages, modern and classical. In addition to publishing actively (6 single-author scholarly books, 80 scholarly articles/chapters, several (co)edited volumes, Japanese literature translation), Professor Thornber has held a range of leadership and service positions at Harvard and well beyond, and taught, advised, and mentored graduate and undergraduate students from across the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Professor Thornber's website is here.