We are sad to share that Professor Stephen Owen, Comp Lit and EALC Professor Emeritus and Prolific Scholar, passed away on Friday, May 1, 2026. Professor Owen joined the Harvard faculty in 1982 and was an active part of our community for over four decades. In recognition of his groundbreaking research in Chinese literature and poetry, he received the James Bryant Conant University Professorship in 1997, one of only twenty-five professors to hold that distinguished rank. He served as a Senior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and was honored with the Wilbur Cross Medal from Yale University, and received the Mellon Foundation Distinguished Achievement Award for his seminal contributions to the fields of Chinese and Comparative Literatures.

In 2018, Professor Owen was awarded the Tang Prize for Sinology. In its citation, the Tang Prize Foundation noted that “Stephen Owen has been the single most important scholar of Chinese classical poetry in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. [He] has done as much as any scholar of his generation to introduce the riches of the Chinese literary tradition to Western readers, . . . to reflect upon its contribution to the world literary heritage, and to revolutionize the way it is read.”

Professor Owen’s scholarship has reached audiences around the world, and especially in China, through his students and the many translations of his works. He combined immense erudition, great literary sensibility, and broad comparative interests, bringing out the distinctiveness and richness of Chinese literature. He wore his learning lightly as he taught us how to read and to share the pleasure of reading through teaching and writing. For many of us, he was a mentor and a friend who shaped our paths as scholars and teachers. He authored more than a dozen scholarly monographs and was awarded the 2020 Stanislas Julien prize for his book Just a Song: Chinese Lyrics from the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Centuries, published by the Harvard University Asia Center’s East Asian Monograph series.

Upon Professor Owen’s retirement in 2018, the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University and the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University jointly convened an international symposium on Chinese and comparative literatures at Harvard in his honor. The papers spanned the many fields within which Professor Owen’s contributions have been felt, and allowed participants, drawn from among Owen’s graduate advisees and from the top scholars of Chinese and comparative literature around the world, to reflect upon the ways these fields have changed over the course of his long teaching career and the new directions in which they are developing, and should develop, in the years ahead. Steve gave us joy, challenged us to think more deeply, and left us with a lasting sense of possibility. His work and his example will continue to shape our community for years to come.

From EALC obituary

The China Academy obituary: Farewell to Stephen Owen: A Stranger in the Kingdom of Red Beans