CAO Li is Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Director of the Centre for the Studies of European and American Literatures at Tsinghua University. She received her PhD from Newnham College, University of Cambridge. She has served as the Vice Chair  of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures,  Deputy Dean of Xinya College and Chair of the Committee for Teaching Affairs. She has also served as Co-president of the International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE), Vice President of the International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures under the auspices of UNESCO (FILLM), and Vice Chair of the Chinese Association for English Literature， and the Chinese Association for Literature in English. Her reserch area includes  20th century critical  theory, postcolonial criticism, English Romanticism, Liberal Education. She has taught Literary Criticism and Research Methods, The English Canon,  Canon and Contemprary Fiction, The Idea of the University, Literature and the University, Writing and Critical Thinking, Advance English, etc.  She is the author and editor of several books including Gayatri Spivak, The Eternal Utopia, The Idea of the University and the Humanistic Spirit, The Conflicts and Dreams of Civilizations, Art Humanities, Literature and Art: the Moment and the Eternity, New Pilgrimages, Cambridge Criticism: China and World, etc.