Associate Professor
About
Role
FacultyPosition
- Associate Professor
Concentration
- Late imperial and twentieth century China
- Chinese-Western exchange since the 16th century.
- Catholicism in China
Department
- History
Education
- Ph.D. History and Asian Studies
Biography
I am a historian of modern China specializing in the history of Catholicism, Sino-Western exchange since the sixteenth century, and the socio-cultural development of the modern Chinese state. My foundational research focused on the real estate holdings of the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (Société des Missions Étrangères de Paris, MEP) in South China from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. This work interrogated the intersections of ecclesiastical history, property rights, international law, and transnational diplomacy.
Building upon this trajectory, I am currently engaged in two primary research projects:
- The Crisis of the French Catholic Mission (1937–1949): Expanding on my previous work, this project investigates the operational and existential experiences of French missions in South China during the Pacific War and the Chinese Civil War.
- Rural Social History of China’s Mid-Yangtze Valley: This project shifts the focus toward 'history from below,' examining the quotidian life of rural populations in the mid-Yangtze River valley during the Republican era.
Publications
Articles
- "Cooperation and Resistance: Preserving Church Property Ownership in Early Twentieth–Century China. The Catholic Historical Review.(Forthcoming)
- "From a Diplomatic to a Domestic Issue: China's Struggle with Church Properties in the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937)," Twentieth-Century China 45, no. 1 (January 2020): 66-84.
- "Building an Ecclesiastical Real Estate Empire in Late Imperial China," The Catholic Historical Review 104, no. 4 (Autumn 2019): 636-658.
- “A Martyr and a Hero: Political Ideologies and Religious Experiences in Modern China,” in Catholicism’s Encounters with China. 17th to 20th Century, ed. Alexandre Chen Tsung-ming (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2018), 255-274.
- "Regulating Church Property in Late Imperial China,” Frontiers of History in China 12, no. 1 (April 2017): 93-111.
- “Xin cailiao, xin shijiao, Jiujinshan daxue de Guangzhou dang’an jieshao” (New Sources, NewPerspectives: Introduction to the Canton Archive of University of San Francisco) (in Chinese), in Jidujiao yu Zhongguo shehui wenhua: di wu jie guoji qingnian xuezhe yantaohui lunwenji (Studies in Christianity and Culture: Essays from the Fifth International Young Scholars Symposium), ed. Lai Pinchao and Wu Xiaoxin (Hong Kong: Center for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society, Chung Chi College, CUHK, 2014), 115-128.
- "Catholicism and the Gelaohui in Late Qing China," New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 15 (June 2013): 93-113.
Translation
- Lead translator from English to Chinese A Jesuit in the Forbidden City: Matteo Ricci 1552-1610 by R. Po-chia Hsia (Oxford University Press 2010). Published as Li Madou: Zijincheng lide Yesuhuishi. Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe 2012. Updated edition published in 2020.
Book Reviews
- Review of China's Old Churches: The History, Architecture, and Legacy of Catholic Sacred Structures in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei Province by Alan Richard Sweeten (Leiden: Brill, 2020), The Catholic Historical Review 110. 1, 2024.
- Review of Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain: the Story of a Secret Brotherhood in Rural China, 1939-1949 by Di Wang (Stanford University Press, 2018), Pacific Affairs 93. 3, 2020.
- Review of Harmonious Disagreement: Matteo Ricci and his Closest Chinese Friends by Yu Liu (Peter Lang Press, 2015), China Review International 21.2, 2016.
- Review of God’s Little Daughters: Catholic Women in Nineteenth-Century Manchuria by Ji Li (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2015), China Review International 21.2, 2016.
- Review of Between Birth and Death: Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century China by M. T.King (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), IIAS Newsletter (University of Leiden, International Institute for Asian Studies), Spring, 2015.
- Review of Glorify the Empire: Japanese Avant-garde Propaganda in Manchukuo by Annika A. Culver (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2013), IIAS Newsletter (University of Leiden, International Institute for Asian Studies), Summer, 2015.
- Review of A Protestant Church in Communist China: Moore Memorial Church Shanghai 1949-1989 by John Craig William Keating (Bethlehem: Lehigh University Press, 2012), Asian Studies Review. May, 2014.
Courses
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HIST 121, Asian Civilization II
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HIST 452, China in the Modern World, 1600-Present
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HIST 455, Tokugawa and Modern Japan, 1600-Present
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HIST 492, Capstone Seminar
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HIST 456 East Asia in the Age of Empire