About

David Lurie is the Wm. Theodore and Fanny Brett de Bary and Class of 1941 Collegiate Professor of Asian Humanities and Associate Professor of Japanese History and Literature at Columbia University. His educational background includes a BA from Harvard University in 1993, and both an MA (1996) and a PhD (2001) from Columbia University. His research interests encompass Japanese history and literature, with a particular focus on the technology of language in premodern Japan. This includes the history of writing systems and literacy, the literary and cultural history of premodern Japan, the Japanese reception of Chinese literary, historical, and technical writings, the development of Japanese dictionaries and encyclopedias, the history of linguistic thought, Japanese mythology, and world philology. Professor Lurie's first book, 'Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing,' investigated the development of writing systems in Japan through the Heian period and received the Lionel Trilling Award in 2012. He contributed to the 'Cambridge History of Japanese Literature' (2015) as a co-editor and author of chapters on myths, histories, gazetteers, and early literature. He is working on a new scholarly monograph titled 'The Emperor’s Dreams: Reading Japanese Mythology.' His work has been published in various academic outlets, and he has contributed chapters on Japanese lexicography and the development of Japanese writing.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Epistemology
• Literature
• Art history
• History
• Art
• Philosophy

Selected publications

• THE WIND THAT MELTS THE ICE: REFLECTIONS ON THE SCALE OF PHILOLOGY

  History and Theory · 2025-10-26

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT The global history of philology, like that of writing systems and other technologies, is characterized by diffusion and adaptation. These processes are made more difficult to grasp if we maintain a presentist focus on the Western philological tradition and its deeply Eurocentric legacy. Arguing against those who wish to resolve the problem by abandoning the term “philology” as irredeemably tainted, I propose that we introduce the notion of scale. Heuristically, it is helpful to think in terms of “small‐p” philology, the low‐level quotidian strategies and tools used by students and scholars to solve problems of textual interpretation, and “big‐P” Philology, a larger ideological edifice linked to metahistorical and transhistorical narratives about abstract concepts such as civilization, race, and religious truth. As a first step toward illuminating this issue of scale, this article excavates a highly specific moment of philological scholarship in twelfth‐century Japan and shows how a difficult word from a classical waka poem is explicated through the extension of an existing Chinese exegetical system. The example is taken from the Ōgishō , a pioneering treatise by the Heian period scholar Fujiwara no Kiyosuke (1104–1177).

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• Preface

  Columbia University Press eBooks · 2023

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
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• The Vernacular in the World of Wen: Sheldon Pollock’s Model in East Asia?

  BRILL eBooks · 2023 · 1 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Literature
  • History

  Does Sheldon Pollock’s model of the emergence of vernaculars in relation to a pre-existing literary cosmopolis apply to East Asia? He himself suggests it does not, but the question is not a simple one. Vernacularization in his specific sense means that local spoken languages become written media for literary expression and the assertion of political power, and then supplant the cosmopolitan register on which they were modeled. In order to evaluate the applicability of this concept to pre- and early modern China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, three issues must be considered: the relationship between their local languages and writing, the emergence of specifically literary texts written in those languages, and the degree to which the Literary Sinitic cosmopolitan was supplanted before the modern period. Pollock is right to be skeptical of “full” vernacularization in East Asia, but by considering the applicability of his model to the region we sharpen our sense of the distinctive elements in its history, and we also discover ways to revise or expand the model itself.

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• PARABLES OF INSCRIPTION: SOME NOTES ON NARRATIVES OF THE ORIGIN OF WRITING

  History and Theory · 2018-12-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  ABSTRACT The story of the god Thoth and King Ammon in Plato's Phaedrus is perhaps the most familiar example of a script‐origin narrative, but such accounts also exist from ancient China (such as Xu Shen's postface to the Shuowen jiezi ) and Mesopotamia (the poem “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta”). There are also rich and provocative ancient discussions of what it means to “borrow” or “adapt” writing from an adjacent (often more powerful) civilization, including a set of related narratives in eighth‐century Japanese chronicles about Korean scribes importing Sinitic writing. Such premodern sources can be profitably juxtaposed with modern discussions of colonial and ethnological encounters with literacy, such as frequently quoted and requoted stories of “natives” taken aback at the power of writing, or Claude Lévi‐Strauss's famous “Writing Lesson” (from his 1955 book Tristes Tropiques ). This article considers the persistent anachronism that marks such accounts. Whether premodern or modern, it seems they inevitably become parables or allegories of the powers of writing at the time of their composition, rather than plausible reconstructions of its earliest stages. What lies behind this difficulty in writing the history of writing?

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• Progress, Comparison, and the Nature of Literary History

  Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East · 2018-05-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Research Article| May 01 2018 Progress, Comparison, and the Nature of Literary History: Or, Notes from the Children’s Table David Lurie David Lurie Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2018) 38 (1): 155–163. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4390087 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation David Lurie; Progress, Comparison, and the Nature of Literary History: Or, Notes from the Children’s Table. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 1 May 2018; 38 (1): 155–163. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201x-4390087 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsComparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2018 Duke University Press2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

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• Rental Home Sweet Home: The Disparate Impact Solution for Renters Evicted from Residential Foreclosures

  Northwestern University law review · 2016-01-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  At the end of the last decade, a drastic spike in residential foreclosures brought unprecedented attention to the damage that mass foreclosure often brings to primarily low-income, minority–majority communities. Much of this attention—in both the media and in the legal arena—has been devoted to homeowners disadvantaged by predatory loans and other unsavory practices. However, a recent body of scholarship has shown that the brunt of mass foreclosure often falls on renters, who often have little or no procedural protection from speedy and unexpected eviction from their homes, regardless of lease status or tenure. This Note argues that the Supreme Court’s recent decision to affirm disparate impact liability under the Fair Housing Act provides a promising but unexplored legal hook to challenge these mass eviction practices and ensure meaningful protections for tenants in foreclosed properties.

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• The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-07-31 · 27 citations

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  The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature provides, for the first time, a history of Japanese literature with comprehensive coverage of the premodern and modern eras in a single volume. The book is arranged topically in a series of short, accessible chapters for easy access and reference, giving insight into both canonical texts and many lesser known, popular genres, from centuries-old folk literature to the detective fiction of modern times. The various period introductions provide an overview of recurrent issues that span many decades, if not centuries. The book also places Japanese literature in a wider East Asian tradition of Sinitic writing and provides comprehensive coverage of women's literature as well as new popular literary forms, including manga (comic books). An extensive bibliography of works in English enables readers to continue to explore this rich tradition through translations and secondary reading.

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• Bibliography of English secondary sources and translations

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-12-17

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• Introduction: writing, literacy, and the origins of Japanese literature

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-07-31 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• Fudoki gazetteers

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-07-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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Frequent coauthors

• Haruo Shirane

  17 shared

• Wiebke Denecke

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  6 shared

• Joshua S. Mostow

  6 shared

• Torquil Duthie

  University of California, Los Angeles

  4 shared

• Brian Steininger

  University of California, Los Angeles

  4 shared

• Lewis Cook

  4 shared

• Satoko Naito

  3 shared

• Robert Borgen

  3 shared

Education

• B.A.

  Harvard University

  1993

• M.A.

  Columbia University

  1996

• Ph.D.

  Columbia University

  2001

Awards & honors

• Lionel Trilling Award (2012)