Fields of Interest:
My principal interests are maritime history and the ways that flows of trade, people, and goods have shaped life in China and East Asia from the early-modern period to the present. My first book project, called Sealords Live in Vain, tells the story of how the maritime province of Fujian in southeast China was transformed by trade and piracy into an outlaw frontier in the 17th century. In future projects, I hope to examine topics such as population mobility in Chinese history and also the rise of robotics and cybernetics in East Asia.
Graduate Fields:
I offer the following fields for the PhD qualifying examination. For explanations of fields, see the "Graduate Overview" page in the Graduate Handbook.
Teaching Field:
Asian History
Research Field:
Modern China
I will not be accepting students for admission in Fall 2013.
Courses Offered:
- HIS 183: Modern China
- HIS 186: Modern East Asia
- HIS 210: Tibet: History and Myth
- HIS 281: The Chinese Revolution
- HIS 285: The Korean War
- HIS 338W/438: Modernity through East Asian Eyes
Representative Publications:
- "The Empire's Scorched Shore: Coastal China, 1633-1683" The Journal of Early Modern History (forthcoming, 2013).
- "Night Thoughts of a Hungry Ghost-Writer: Chen Bulei and the Life of Service in Republican China." Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Spring 2007), pp. 1-59.
- "The Men Who Would Not Be Amban, and the One Who Would: Four Frontline Officials and Qing Tibet Policy, 1905-1911." Modern China, Vol. 34, No. 2 (April 1, 2008), pp. 210-246.
- "To Protect and Preserve: Resisting the 'Destroy the Four Olds' Campaign, 1966-1967." Chapter 2 in Joseph Esherick, Paul Pickowicz, and Andrew Walder, eds. The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History (Stanford University Press, 2006), pp. 64-95