The Department of History is thrilled to announce the arrival of Dr. Lingyan Liu!
Dr. Lingyan Liu has joined UTC’s History Department this fall! Dr. Liu specializes in the cultural and social history of modern China, with particular interests on the subfields of sound studies, sensory studies, and Asian American studies. Her dissertation, “That Hideous Noise,” examines how the sounds produced by the Chinese, such as laborers’ chanting, night watchmen’s calling, and even the sound of Chinese firecrackers, were constructed as noisy, primitive, antique, and unpleasant by some and as inspiring clarion call for a future China by others. This was a global story tracing the transnational making of the “noisy” Chinese and the rise of a new sonic nationalism in China from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.
Before coming to Chattanooga, Dr. Liu taught survey courses in modern world history and East Asian history, as well as upper-level course in early modern and modern Chinese history at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. During Fall 2025, she is teaching “HIST 1120: Making the Modern World.” As a sensory historian, she brings sound, image, and material objects into the classroom to create a multisensory encounter with the past. Her former experience as a journalist also shapes her teaching, helping her to connect historical study with contemporary issues and make history feel more immediate and relatable for students.