Asian Studies Faculty

BA, Valparaiso University. MA, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. PhD, University of California-Berkeley. Recipient of a Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation dissertation grant for archival research in Chongqing (China). Research concerns 20th-century China, specifically Kuomintang war mobilization and interior society during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45). Dissertation, “Under the Gun: Nationalist Military Service and Society in Wartime Sichuan, 1938-1945,” presently being revised for future publication, examines the state-making projects embedded within conscription and voluntary enlistment in Chiang Kai-shek's army. Translating the confessions and jottings of a captured KMT spy, who spent 16 years undergoing self-reform in a communist prison, is a side project currently in progress. Key areas of interest include China’s transition from a dynastic empire to a nation-state; the role of war in state-making; modes of political mobilization and their intersection with social organization; and private life and selfhood, including national, regional, or local and personal identities. Broadly teaches on modern (17th century to present) East Asian history, with a focus on politics, society, and urban culture. In addition to a course on war in 20th-century Asia, a personal involvement in photography has inspired a course on photographic images and practice in China and Japan from the 19th century through the present. Member of the American Historical Association, Association of Asian Studies, and Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China. SLC, 2011–

BSc, University of Toronto. MA, MPhil, PhD, Columbia University. Special interest in the social and cultural history of medieval China, with emphasis on the intersection of politics and religion; author of the forthcoming Politics and Prayer: Shrines to Local Worthies in Sung China; member, Association of Asian Studies; recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies grant. SLC, 2001–

BA, Wellesley College. PhD, University of Chicago. Special interest in South Asian cultures, religions, and literatures. Two Fulbright Awards for field research in India. Articles, papers, and poems appear in international venues; ethnographic photographs exhibited. Chair of the South Asia Council and member of the Board of Directors, Association for Asian Studies; administrative board of Harvard-Radcliffe College; senior fellow, Center for the Humanities, Wesleyan University; delegate to Copenhagen UN summit on global poverty; group leader for the Experiment in International Living; national selection boards for institutional Fulbright grants. SLC, 1990–