Skip to content

Tung-Hui Hu

Tung-Hui HuAppointment: 2009 to 2012
English Language and Literature

Tung-Hui Hu is the author of two books of poetry, The Book of Motion (2003) and Mine (2007); his third collection is Greenhouses, Lighthouses. Described by the San Francisco Foundation as a “provocative gesture towards cinematography,” the book is composed of a series of palinodes, a form that sings back or recants a previous error. Complementing his creative work, his nonfiction manuscript, A History of Clouds in the Desert, examines the legacy of atomic blasts and electronic warfare in the empty spaces of the Nevada desert. Analogue records from that period—classified film footage, abandoned railroad tracks—have begun to decay, and now constitute a ghostly presence inside modern-day digital networks.

Hu holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Film from UC Berkeley. He teaches in the Department of English, where he focuses on post-1960 visual art, poetics, and new media.