Caleb Powell Haun Saussy (born 1960) is the University Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.

Research

Saussy's first book, The Problem of a Chinese Aesthetic (Stanford UP, 1993), discussed the tradition of commentary that has grown up around the early Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry

Chinese poetry is poetry written, spoken, or chanted in the Chinese language, which includes various versions of Chinese language, including Classical Chinese, Standard Chinese, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Yue Chinese, as well as many other historical and vernacular varieties of the Chinese language...

 collection Shi jing (known in English as the Book of Songs). His most recent book is Great Walls of Discourse and Other Adventures in Cultural China (Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 Asia Center, 2001), an account of the ways of knowing and describing specific to China scholarship

Scholarship

A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...

. He is an avid cyclist, memorizer of verb paradigms and lyric poetry

Lyric poetry

Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...

, and contributor to a variety of art installations including the innovative Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in San Jose, California. His articles range widely, from the imaginary universal languages of Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher

Athanasius Kircher was a 17th century German Jesuit scholar who published around 40 works, most notably in the fields of oriental studies, geology, and medicine...

 to Chinese musicology

Chinese musicology

Chinese musicology is the academic study of traditional Chinese music. This discipline has a very long history. The concept of music yue stands among the oldest categories of Chinese thought, however, in the known sources it does not receive more or less clear definition until the Book of Music...

 to the great Qing dynasty

Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....

 novel Honglou meng. He edited the American Comparative Literature Associations 2004 report on the state of the discipline. He is on the editorial board for the Cambria Sinophone World Series (Cambria Press

Cambria Press

Cambria Press is an independent academic publisher based in Amherst, New York. The publishing company was established by 2006, with its first titles released in September of that year. Cambria publishes academic monographs and new titles by scholars in a wide range of research fields, initially...

), headed by Victor H. Mair

Victor H. Mair

Victor Henry Mair is a Philologist specializing in Sinitic and Indo-European languages, and holds the position of Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States...

.

Biography

Saussy is the son of Tupper Saussy

Tupper Saussy

Frederick Tupper Saussy III was an American composer, musician, author, and artist. He was born in Statesboro, Georgia; grew up in Tampa, Florida; and graduated from the University of the South at Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1958. His jazz combo there put out a university-subsidized album, Jazz at...

, a renowned American composer, musician, author, and artist. Raised in suburban Nashville

Nashville, Tennessee

Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, Tennessee

Tennessee

Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, he attended Deerfield Academy

Deerfield Academy

Deerfield Academy is an independent, coeducational boarding school in Deerfield, Massachusetts, United States. It is a four-year college-preparatory school with approximately 600 students and about 100 faculty, all of whom live on or near campus....

 and then received his B.A. (Greek and Comparative Literature) from Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

 in 1981. He received his M.Phil and Ph.D from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in Comparative Literature

Comparative literature

Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...

. Between undergraduate and graduate schools, he studied linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 and Chinese in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

. Saussy was previously Assistant Professor (1990-95) and Associate Professor (1995-97) at University of California, Los Angeles

University of California, Los Angeles

The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

. He was Associate Professor, Full Professor, and chairman of the comparative literature

Comparative literature

Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...

 department at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

, prior to joining the Yale faculty in 2004.

He is the current Graduate President of the Alpha of Connecticut Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Honors

• President (2009-2011) of the American Comparative Literature Association
• Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
• Graduate President of the Alpha of Connecticut Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.