David Palumbo-Liu

Professor of Comparative Literature

Professor, by courtesy, of English

Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor

1988: Ph.D., Comparative Literature, University of California at Berkeley

Links

I am most interested in issues regarding biospheric justice, race and ethnicity, human rights, globalization, and the specific role that literature and the humanities play in helping us address each of these areas. My latest book, Speaking Out of Place: How to Get Our Political Voices Back, is a consideration of the idea of political voice, and was published by Haymarket Books in Dec 2021.

Its extension, the Speaking Out of Place podcast, is devoted to culture, politics, and the arts. We cover a wide range of topics: human rights, environmental justice, race, indigeneity, and gender. We have done episodes on Palestine, Kashmir, Myanmar, India, Iran, Sudan, Kenya; radical eduation; the climate crisis and activism around it; decolonizing museums and conservation; and the new empires of technology, such as AI. We partner with The Creative Process in Paris, a media project whose podcasts rank in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. SoP is also featured on all major podcast channels.

My public writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation, Jacobin, Truthout, The Boston Review, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Salon, The Hill, and other venues. I serve on the Board of Directors of Truthout.

I have served on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association, and as President of the American Comparative Literature Association. I am a former Chair of the Stanford Faculty Senate.