Julia Luo « Faculty
Lecturer, EALC
Associate Language Coordinator, Chinese Language Program
cluo 
indiana.edu
Goodbody Hall 227
(812) 855-3635
Education
- Ph.D., Indiana University, 1999
Research Interests
- Chinese religious and cultural histories
Courses Recently Taught
- Chinese language courses 1st through 4th year
- Contemporary China (Flagship companion for Professor Klaus Mühlhahn’s course)
- Chinese Cinema (Flagship companion for Professor Stephanie DeBoer’s course)
Awards and Distinctions
- Top 10 Course Instructors, College Board Advanced Placement World Languages Best Practices Course Study, Center for Educational Policy Research, Eugene, Oregon, 2006
- Teaching and Learning with Technology Grant, Teaching and Learning Technologies Centers, Indiana University, 2005
- Research Incentive Dissertation Year Fellowship, Indiana University, 1995
- Dissertation Year Fellowship, Indiana University, 1995
- Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships (FLAS), 1990
Publication Highlights
- Coastal Culture and Religion in Early China: A Study Through Comparison with the Central Plain Region (dissertation, 1999).
- Ten entries in Harper's Dictionary of Religion, ed. Jonathan Z. Smith (Harper San Francisco, 1995).
I came to IU originally to study Christian hermeneutics and Chinese religions. A pursuit for “comparative studies” forced me to examine the usefulness of ideological parallelism and to turn to a more historical and contextual approach. I realized that a true discourse begins only when one is willing to enter the other’s world with no preconceived agenda. This type of deep encounter can then create a transformation on the self, which is the most beautiful form of hermeneutic dance that I know of. When my son became diagnosed with autism, I changed my focus to language teaching. Daily I teach my son his first human language and most of my students their first foreign language. I learn to enter their worlds so that they would enter mine. I find it immensely rewarding to help students negotiate between two linguistically affected cognitive structures. I enjoy learning language pedagogy much the same way I enjoy studying cultural and hermeneutic discourses. I see myself as a cultural interpreter who does not really interpret.
