Graduate Student, Comparative Literary Studies
Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies
Goethe Universitaet Frankfurt am Main, Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
About
Julia received a joint B.A. and M.A. in German and Comparative Literature from UCLA, and has studied at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main, the Humboldt and Freie Universities in Berlin, the University of Vienna, and the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Her dissertation research explores the mathematical foundations of the project for perpetual peace that has served as the frame of reference for modernity's view of law, justice and international politics. It focuses on the early work of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem as part of a genealogy ranging across philosophy, literature and architecture since the 17th century that reflects on the link between the constitution of scientific objectivity and the expression and execution of political power. She is the co-founder of the Paul of Tarsus Reading Group at Northwestern, and has published and presented on philosophical and political issues in literature and architecture theory in the German, French and English traditions. She is the recipient of awards from the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies and the Josephine de Kármán Fellowship Foundation, as well as the Paris Program in Critical Theory, the Dissertation Year Fellowship, the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, the Deutsches Historisches Institut Paris, the Carter Manny Award program of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the DAAD. Before arriving at Northwestern, Julia worked as a literary editor and freelance journalist in her hometown of Hong Kong.
