Arif Dirlik

Who is Arif Dirlik?

Arif Dirlik is a retired historian most known for his works about the formation of the Chinese Communist Party, especially its relation to anarchism, and for his attacks on the academic subfield of post-colonial studies. Dirlik received a BSc in Electrical Engineering at Robert College, Istanbul in 1964 and a PhD in History at the University of Rochester in 1973.

From 1971 until 2001 he stayed as a member of the History faculty at Duke University. In 2001 he moved to the University of Oregon in 2001 as Knight Professor of History and Anthropology where he also was appointed Director of the Center for Critical Theory and Transnational Studies. He retired from Oregon in 2006. He was a Visiting Professor in Summer 2006 at the Central Bureau for Compilation and Translation in Beijing, a Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies in the Netherlands, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Dirlik has been a visiting faculty member at UCLA, University of Victoria, BC, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Soka University of America.