University of California, Berkeley

Aileen Liu specializes in early modern English literature and Shakespeare. Her dissertation, Shakespearean Romance, considers how and why Shakespeare takes on the challenge of translating the genre of romance from page to stage in his late plays (Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline, and The Tempest). She is a contributor to two digital humanities projects, the Shakespeare’s Staging project at UC Berkeley, and the Restoring Sidney’s Arcadia project in collaboration with faculty at Purdue and Stetson. Her essay “A Perfect Match: Two Griseldas and a Wedding Dress in Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Chaucer” was awarded the Joel Fineman Prize from UC Berkeley’s English department in 2012. She won several writing prizes as an undergraduate at Duke University, where she received her BA in English.

In 2016, Aileen received an Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award from UC Berkeley. She has designed and taught Reading and Composition courses on Shakespeare, Hollywood film, and genre. She has also taught for the department’s gateway class for the English major, “Literature through Milton,” and the department’s Shakespeare survey, a popular class for English majors and non-majors alike. In the summers, Aileen designs and teaches intensive writing classes on contemporary fiction and non-fiction at ATPD (Academic Talent Development Program), a UC Berkeley program for gifted and talented youth. Before matriculating at UC Berkeley for her PhD, Aileen taught high school English in the Atlanta Public Schools through Teach For America, a teaching program aimed at improving educational outcomes and expanding opportunities for students in low-income communities.