Michel Hockx joined the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies as its founding director and a professor of Chinese literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures in the College of Arts & Letters in 2016. He has published widely, both in English and in Chinese, on topics related to modern Chinese literary culture, especially early 20th-century Chinese magazine literature and print culture and contemporary Internet literature. His monograph Internet Literature in China was listed by Choice magazine as one of the “Top 25 Outstanding Academic Titles of 2015.” Hockx studied Chinese language and literature at Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he earned his PhD in 1994 for a thesis on modern Chinese poetry. He also studied at Liaoning and Peking universities in China. Before joining the University of Notre Dame, Hockx served as director of the China Institute at SOAS, University of London, where he oversaw a community of 50 China scholars in a dozen disciplinary departments. 

In spring 2026, he published his latest monograph, Literature and Censorship in Modern China (Routledge), and was awarded a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), one of the world’s foremost centers for intellectual inquiry into the sciences and the humanities. He will spend the 2026-27 academic year at the IAS campus in Princeton, New Jersey, working on his next book, tentatively titled “Modern Chinese Writers and Their Travel Agents.”

Thanks to Professor Hockx's dedication and leadership, the past 10 years have dramatically shaped Asian Studies at Notre Dame.

“In his 10 years as Liu Institute director, he has elevated the study of Asia beyond expectation, and the Notre Dame community has been enriched by his efforts, knowledge, and dedication.”

— Susan Blum, Professor of Anthropology and the former head of Notre Dame's Center for Asian Studies, the precursor to the Liu Institute