Chinese Historians in the United States
主讲嘉宾: 王晴佳博士 ，美國羅文大學歷史系傑出教授 (Dr. Q. Edward Wang, inaugural Eminent Professor at the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Rowan University）
演讲题目及简介： 《日常食物？超级食物？番薯的全球之旅》
本講座基於王教授即将问世的新著, Staple to Superfood: A Global History of the Sweet Potato (哥伦比亚大学出版社2025年12月），透過追溯蕃薯的全球旅程，闡明這一作物如何在不同社會中扮演相異角色，並以此改變社會，展現全球現代化歷程的多元圖景。
Saturday, January 10, 2026: 3:30 PM-5:00 PM
Marshfield Room (Palmer House Hilton, Third Floor)
Session Organizer: Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University
Chair: Qiang Fang, University of Minnesota, Duluth
Papers:
Language, Commerce, and Empire: Introducing Chinese Instruction into US Higher Education, with Harvard as a Case Study
Shuhua Fan, The University of Scranton
“Securing and Holding Our Share of Influence and Trade in China”: Edwin Conger and US–China Relations at the Turn of the 20th Century
Tao Wang, Iowa State University
The Chinese Communist Party’s Transition from a Revolutionary Party to a Ruling Party, 1990s−2010
Xiaoqing Diana Lin, Indiana University Northwest
Who Are They? A Study of Chinese Legislators Elected During the First Nationwide Election in 1912–13
Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University
Comment: Guolin Yi, Providence College
Session Abstract: Political, Cultural, and Diplomatic Networks in China and Beyond”
This panel features four papers that explore the multifaceted relationships shaping the transformation of modern China and its interactions with the wider world. Since the mid-nineteenth century, China’s deep engagement with the international community has fostered exchanges of ideas, experiences, and models of development. Through these interactions, the Chinese sought new approaches to nation-building and state formation. The papers examine the evolving political, cultural, and diplomatic networks both among the Chinese themselves and between the Chinese and foreign actors. Together, the panelists offer fresh insights into how these transnational networks emerged through the adoption of new ideas, the forging of new relationships, and the pursuit of new goals. Collectively, these studies reveal how modern China’s history was shaped by a web of interconnected ideas, experiences, interpretations, and decisions born from its dynamic engagement with the world—an engagement that ultimately influenced the course of China’s national development.
Paper Abstracts
Language, Commerce, and Empire: Introducing Chinese Instruction into US Higher Education, with Harvard as a Case Study
Shuhua Fan, The University of Scranton
Serious efforts to introduce Chinese instruction into American colleges started in the 1870s with the inauguration of Chinese classes at Yale and Harvard and the establishment of an endowed professorship at the University of California-Berkeley. This paper uses the first Harvard Chinese language class (1879-1882) as a case study to examine the rise of pioneering Chinese programs in America in the late 19th century. Harvard started its Chinese class in 1879 because of the Chinese Educational Scheme presented in 1877 by Francis Knight, a U.S. consul and merchant. Authorized by Harvard, Knight made thorough preparations on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, including recruiting teacher Ko Kunhua, a Chinese poet, to carry out his scheme. The Chinese class came to a sudden end in 1882 due to Ko’s death, with no more help from Knight who died in 1880.
Using both primary and secondary sources, this paper explores the ways how domestic developments in the U.S. and China, U.S.-China interactions, and broader international context shaped Knight’s educational scheme. It argues that Knight’s scheme and the Harvard Chinese class reveal the interconnections among empire, commerce, Christianity, language, and higher education in late 19th century U.S.-China relations. These similar factors can help explain the rise of other Chinese programs in the U.S. and the rise of new or expansion of existing Chinese programs in Europe in the age of new imperialism. The paper also shows that the end of the entire program at Harvard with the teacher’s passing indicates that the cultural network constructed by Knight and participated by Ko was fragile, depending totally on one or two particular individuals’ availability or efforts. This paper fills a gap in the study of the pioneering Chinese language programs in American academia and contributes to the expanding literature on 19th century U.S.-China relations.
“Securing and Holding Our Share of Influence and Trade in China”: Edwin Conger and US–China Relations at the Turn of the 20th Century
Tao Wang, Iowa State University
As U.S. minister to China from 1898 to 1905, Edwin Conger underwent one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S.-China relations, including the European powers’ “Scramble for China” after the first Sino-Japanese War, the Hundred Days Reform, the anti-Christian riots culminating in the Boxer Rebellion, the U.S. espousal of the Open Door Policy, and the Chinese boycott of American products in 1905, which was the first nationalist movement in modern Chinese history. As the top U.S. diplomat in China, Conger played a crucial role in U.S. China policymaking during this period; yet the existing works have not examined his influence.
Using the diplomatic documents from the Department of State and the personal files such as those from Edwin Conger’s wife Sarah Conger, this paper explores the U.S. policy toward China during this period. It will answer the following questions: How did the U.S. respond to European imperialism in China? What was the U.S. perception of China’s modernization efforts and its internal power struggle? What factors contributed to the Open Door Policy, which served as the foundation of U.S. policy towards China for the first half of the 20th century? How did the U.S. meet the challenges of Chinese nationalism? And what role did Conger play in the U.S. China policymaking? This paper argues that the United States had successfully secured its interests to some extent while helping the Chinese, although it had limited presence and influence in China. Edwin Conger employed his personal connections in China to persuade his American colleagues to assume a practical attitude towards China. Consequently, his persuasive analysis of the Chinese situation and his poignant proposals had contributed significantly to America’s pragmatic foreign policy.
The Chinese Communist Party’s Transition from a Revolutionary Party to a Ruling Party, 1990s−2010
Xiaoqing Diana Lin, Indiana University Northwest
Calls for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to transition from a revolutionary party to a ruling party began in the aftermath of the June 4, 1989, government crackdown on student movements, and the collapse of the USSR. These events, along with major political campaigns in Communist China up to the Cultural Revolution, were perceived as the results of revolutionary and populist movements and were widely viewed as destructive and disruptive. These developments deeply influenced conservative-leaning Chinese reformers, prompting a reevaluation of radical and revolutionary approaches to modernization.
A key representation of this gradual shift in the CCP’s approach was the changing profile of its intellectual leadership or “brainpower.” The party moved from relying on Marxist theoreticians like Hu Qiaomu to intellectuals with broader academic training, such as Wang Huning. Before joining the CCP leadership in 1995 at the age of forty, Wang was a professor of international politics at Fudan University. He advocated for an institutional developmental approach over open democracy to advance China’s economy. His perspective drew on the successful stories of China’s Asian neighbors, including Japan, South Korea, and Singapore. Today, rebuilding China’s bureaucratic infrastructure remains a top priority for the CCP, with Wang’s ideas enjoying broad endorsement within the party. This paper explores how the CCP has redefined its role, focusing on demarcating the boundaries of the state’s administrative realm. It examines the party’s bureaucratic development efforts and the growing advocacy for statism among government leaders and left-leaning public intellectuals.
Who Are They? A Study of Chinese Legislators Elected During the First Nationwide Election in 1912–13
Patrick Fuliang Shan, Grand Valley State University
The Chinese, after the 1911 Revolution, held the first and only nation-wide popular election in late 1912 and early 1913, during which the eligible voters, who made up ten percent of the total population, elected over eight hundred senators and congressmen (representatives). Those newly elected legislators traveled to Beijing to convene the first national congress on April 8, 1913, which could be seen as the first democracy in Chinese history. This congress did not last long, however, because it was disbanded by Yuan Shikai on January 10, 1914. Thus, the short existence of this congress has not attracted much scholarly attention.
When we study this congress, important questions should be asked in regard to those eight hundred legislators. Who were those senators and congressmen? What were their family backgrounds? Why could they be elected? What did they do before and during the election? What role did they play in the short-lived congress? Because this congress existed for only nine months, what did they do in the future? Did they collaborate with diverse political parties, such as the CCP and the KMT (or GMD)? All these questions are important scholarly issues concerning the identities of those historical actors of China’s state-building efforts after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty. The paper argues that those legislators were Chinese elites from diverse regions and that they had played an important role in shaping China’s republican politics. Because of the future complicated political landscape, they would embark on diverse political roads. Nevertheless, their personal experience mapped modern China’s historical trajectory, in particular during the long 20th century.
Saturday, January 10, 2026: 1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Marshfield Room (Palmer House Hilton, Third Floor)
Session Organizer: Shouyue Zhang, University of Melbourne
Chair: Guoqi Xu, University of Hong Kong
Papers:
Global Connections and Local Realities: Hong Kong Prostitution, 1904–35
Iris Boyun Lei, University of Hong Kong
Transpacific News Reporting: The Chongqing School of Journalism and the Negotiation of Press and Propaganda During Wartime, 1943–45
Di Luo, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa
The Pan-Pacific Decades: China, Hawaii, and Interwar Pacific Internationalism, 1910s–30s
Bohan Zhang, Rice University
“God Called Me to the Land of My Forefathers”: A Chinese American Teacher in China During the First Half of the 20th Century
Shouyue Zhang, University of Melbourne
Comment: Charlotte Brooks, Graduate Center and Baruch College, City University of New York
Session Abstract:
This panel brings together scholars based from the U.S., Australia, and Hong Kong to explore the multidimensional interactions and exchanges that shaped the Pacific world in the twentieth century. We center on China’s pivotal role in negotiating global and local dynamics. By analyzing cultural, political, and intellectual exchanges across the Pacific, this panel illuminates how the Chinese diaspora engaged with global networks to navigate challenges of imperialism, internationalism, and modernity. The four papers span diverse yet interconnected themes, emphasizing the interplay between global forces and local realities while uncovering underexplored histories of cross-cultural influence and negotiation.
Rethinking the Global China and Chinese diaspora in the Pacific World, four presenters will share their rigorous research on this theme. Iris Lei reviews Hong Kong’s prostitution industry from 1904 to 1935, examining the intersection of gender and colonial modernity by considering its global integration. Dr. Di Luo focuses on the Chongqing School of Journalism during WII, revealing broader tensions between press freedom and wartime propaganda. Bohan Zhang explores Hawaii’s Pan-Pacific movement in China, shedding light on an underexplored cross of Chinese and Pacific history in the Interwar period. Shouyue Zhang studies Chinese Americans in China during the Chinese Exclusion Era, demonstrating that this reverse migration reshaped both their dual identities and the duality of Chinese modernization.
Together, these papers contribute to a broader discussion that redefines China’s global position and cultural identity during a century of transformation. This panel underscores the importance of global-local linkages, transnational mobility, and intellectual exchange in shaping the histories of Asia and America. The panel integrates interdisciplinary perspectives to illuminate how Chinese actors negotiated global crises, adapted international networks, and mediated cultural exchanges, thereby shaping national and transnational identities. By focusing on the circulation of knowledge, mobility, and institutional engagement, this panel repositions China as a central and active participant in the Pacific world, offering new insights into the complexities of global history. By engaging with themes of migration, education, journalism, and internationalism, this panel enriches our understanding of how China navigated and influenced the evolving global order in the twentieth century.
Paper Abstracts
Global Connections and Local Realities: Hong Kong’s Prostitution from 1904to 1935
Iris Boyun Lei, The University of Hong Kong
During Hong Kong’s early colonial period, a severe gender imbalance led to a rapid influx of prostitutes. By the early 20th century, the prostitution industry flourished. Shek Tong Tsui emerged as one of the most renowned red-light districts in the East, attracting prostitutes from Canton, Shanghai, Europe, and Japan. However, by the 1930s, growing feminist activism in Britain and the League of Nations’ global campaign against the “white slave trade” pressured Hong Kong to dismantle its legalized brothel system.
Existing scholarship predominantly examines prostitution through the lens of British colonial regulation, with much of the focus placed on the period before the 20th century. This study, however, shifts attention to the internal dynamics and external influences shaping Chinese prostitution between the 1900s and 1930s, drawing on extensive archival sources—including Po Leung Kuk records, tabloid newspapers, CO129 files, League of Nations reports, government documents, and memoirs.
Rooted in traditional brothel culture, Chinese society cultivated an internal space of romanticized, historically inspired brothels, with sensationalized tales and rigorous Established Customs. In contrast, the British colonial government incorporated Hong Kong’s prostitution industry into the broader regulatory framework of the British Empire, though it later came under increasing pressure from the global anti–white slavery movement. This interplay between internal expansion and external opposition created a paradoxical social landscape between 1900 and the 1930s—while the prostitution industry thrived domestically, international condemnation of the practice intensified. This tension ultimately culminated in 1935, when the Hong Kong government issued an official order to abolish the legalized prostitution system. By adopting a global, social, and spatial history approach, this research situates Hong Kong’s prostitution industry within broader transnational dynamics, offering new insights into the intersection of gender and colonial modernity.
Trans-Pacific News Reporting: The Chongqing School of Journalism and the Negotiation of Press and Propaganda during Wartime (1943-1945)
Di Luo, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa
In 1943, two former classmates, Hollington Tong (1887–1971), China’s Vice- Minister of Publicity, and Carl A. Ackerman, Dean of the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University, collaborated to establish a wartime post- graduate school of journalism in Chongqing, China. Staffed by Columbia faculty and funded by the Chinese Nationalist government, this school aimed at training top-tier professional international news reporters for China. During its two years of operation, the school graduated two classes comprising fifty-seven students, many of whom went on playing vital roles in journalism, diplomacy, and education in post-war China and the United States.
While scholars have examined the Chinese Nationalist government’s efforts in international propaganda during the early years of World War II, the role of the wartime journalism school in Chongqing (1943–1945) remains largely understudied. This paper investigates the founding and operations of this school through archival materials, student-run newspapers, and private correspondence between Columbia faculty and their families. By analyzing the negotiation between professional journalism ideals, free press, and the state’s control of information during wartime, this study sheds light on the broader tensions between press freedom and propaganda. It highlights the critical role of trans-Pacific collaboration in shaping journalistic practices and underscores the ongoing relevance of understanding how access to and control over information are contested in moments of crisis.
The Pan-Pacific Decades: China, Hawaii, and the Interwar Pacific Internationalism, 1910s to 1930s
Bohan Zhang, Rice University
Recent scholarship on Pacific internationalism and Pan-Asianism in the twentieth century has predominantly focused on Japan and the Philippines, often overlooking China’s role. This research addresses that gap by examining the activities of Chinese migrants, diplomats, and athletes within the Pan-Pacific movement during the early twentieth century. It explores how these individuals strove for, questioned, or resisted unity across the Pacific Rim amid imperialism and political instability in China. A notable example is the 1931 Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) Third Pan-Pacific Conference in Shanghai, marking the peak of Chinese public participation in trans-Pacific initiatives. Chinese scholars, characterized by their modern disciplinary expertise and national diplomacy efforts, were key participants in the Pan-Pacific organizations founded under the Wilsonian ideals in Hawai‘i. Additionally, this research focuses on the resistance to Wilsonian Pan- Pacific internationalism within China. Led by the Research Association for Oriental Issues in Beijing and supported by several regional Kuomintang branches, anti-IPR movements gathered Chinese journalists and party officials who opposed the Pan-Pacific agenda promoted by scholarly elites. Their opposition reveals the growing divide between nationalist perspectives and academic-driven internationalism. By focusing on Pan-Pacific organizations founded in Hawaii (Pan Pacific Union and Institute of Pacific Relations), this research sheds light on an underexplored aspect of Chinese and Pacific history in the Interwar period from the late 1910s to 1930s.
“God Called Me to the Land of My Forefathers”: A Chinese American Teacher in China During the First Half of the 20th Century
Shouyue Zhang, University of Melbourne
From 1912 to 1949, many educated American-born Chinese returned to their ancestors’ motherland. Their American educational background enabled them to serve in Chinese secondary and tertiary schools. They were motivated by several factors, like Chinese exclusion in North America and Christian missionary spirits. Joining the inquiries of Jennifer Bond, Charlotte Brooks, and Daniel H. Bays, I will re-examine the experiences and legacy of American teachers with Chinese ancestry in Republican China. Using family papers, oral sources, and university archives collected in the United States and China, I tentatively argue that Chinese American teachers contributed to the intellectual exchanges between America and China. Their worldviews differed from either returned Chinese international students or white American teachers in China. Transnational mobility reshaped returned Chinese Americans’ multiple national identities. Their home-returning routes inspired by the republican government’s propaganda shaped Chinese modernization narratives with a stigma of racial discrimination overseas. Racial discrimination and foreign invasion co-constructed the duality of Chinese modernization.
Saturday, January 10, 2026: 8:30 AM-10:00 AM
Marshfield Room (Palmer House Hilton, Third Floor)
Session Organizer: Yaowen Dong, University of Memphis
Chair: Lei Duan, Sam Houston State University
Papers:
“Amateur” and “Professional” Musical Culture in Socialist and Post-Socialist China
Ling Zhang, Purchase College, State University of New York
From “the Hundred Names (Baixing)” to “the Mass (Qunzhong)”: The Evolving Politics of the Multitude in Socialist China
Yaowen Dong, University of Memphis
Technocracy and/in Revolution: The Public Administration Efficiency Movement in Republican China, 1927–37
Ye Lin, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Performing After Hours: Workers’ Cultural Production at the Margins of Factory Labor in Socialist China
Feifan Li, University of Chicago
Comment:Lei Duan, Sam Houston State University
Session Abstract
This panel investigates the evolving vocabularies, concepts, and nomenclatures that have shaped China’s sociopolitical and cultural landscapes from the Republican era to the present day. By examining metaphors, ideological terms, and cultural labels, the panel interrogates how linguistic frameworks have both articulated and contested the dynamics of state control, collective identity, and individual agency.
Lin Ye explores the role of technocrats in the Nationalist Party (GMD) during the Nanjing Decade, focusing on the 1933 Public Administration Efficiency Movement led by Gan Naiguang. It argues that the GMD’s attempt to prioritize expert-driven governance clashed with its revolutionary ideology, ultimately undermining the movement. The study also suggests that both the GMD and CCP grappled with the tension between ideological loyalty and technocratic efficiency, revealing their parallel approaches to revolutionary governance.
Li Feifan focuses on workers’ after-hours (yeyu) cultural production—particularly drama and performance—in socialist China, focusing on its development during the Great Leap Forward in 1958. It explores why these non-productive activities were legitimized during a time of intense labor demands and how workers experienced them within the structured environment of state-run factories. Drawing on archival materials from Shanghai, the study reveals how such cultural practices enriched everyday life and fostered new forms of social interaction within the collective workplace.
Ling Zhang investigates the transformation of amateur music-making as a site of cultural resistance and identity formation. From the socialist promotion of grassroots musical expression to post-socialist revivals of “red” songs by retirees, Zhang traces how amateur musicians challenged professional hierarchies and reclaimed public spaces. Highlighting examples from socialist documentaries and post-1980s guitar bands, the paper underscores the enduring significance of amateur musical culture as both a historical legacy and a contemporary act of defiance.
Yaowen Dong explores the evolving conceptualizations of the multitude in 20th-century China, comparing the traditional term Baixing with socialist-era notions of Renmin and Qunzhong. Dong argues that despite revolutionary ideals of mobilization, the masses were often framed as passive and apolitical, reflecting persistent paternalistic governance. This tension reveals the ideological continuities and contradictions underlying mass politics in China’s socialist movement.
Together, these papers reveal how revolutionary ideals, cultural practices, and political discourse have shaped and contested the interplay between the individual and the collective in China, offering a nuanced perspective on complex sociopolitical landscape.
Paper Abstracts
Technocracy and/in Revolution: The Public Administration Efficiency Movement in Republican China (1927–1937)
Lin Ye (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
This paper examines the evolving role of technocrats in the Nationalist Party (GMD) during the Nanjing Decade (1927-1937), focusing on the Public Administration Efficiency Movement (xingzhengxiaolv yundong). After seizing power in 1927, the Nationalist government prioritized state-building to counter both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Japanese encroachment. Central to this effort was the efficiency of the government. Beginning in 1933, Gan Naiguang—a University of Chicago-trained political scientist from Wang Jingwei’s faction—assembled a group of non-partisan scholars to spearhead the Public Administration Efficiency Movement: not only did these scholars advice governance with their expertise, but also directly served as technocrats. Through examining the writings of these technocrats and the history of the movement itself, this study demonstrates a red versus expert dilemma in the Republican China—how the GMD’s embrace of “expert” governance collided with its own “red” revolutionary ideology. While technocrats improved governing capacity, their detachment from party creed and popular welfare sparked concerns within the party and finally led to the unexpected failure of the movement. Looking at the usually underestimated governance of the GMD closely, this study proposes a new perspective to understand the relation between the GMD and the CCP: rather than as the diametric opposites, the two parties were parallel revolutionary competitors who formed policies in dialogue with each other as the red versus expert dilemma anticipated a similar challenge faced by the CCP several decades later.
Performing After-hours: Workers’ Cultural Production at the Margins of Factory Labor in Socialist China
Feifan Li (The University of Chicago)
This paper focuses on workers’ after-hours (yeyu) cultural production at the margins of productive factory labor in socialist China. After-hours recreational activities referred to a set of cultural practices in the socialist industrial workplace quite different from contemporary invocations of “amateur” art. Workers’ drama and performance were highly structured activities conducted in the time and space of their work unit and thus distinct from both production time on the shopfloor and private time at home. Through archival documents from Shanghai, this paper delves into the rise of workers’ after-hours drama and performance activities in 1958, when such recreational activities received heightened attention and underwent state reorganization. Why were workers’ cultural activities—not necessarily conducive to productive labor—granted increased legitimacy during the Great Leap Forward, a period usually associated with a collective mania for production? How did factory workers experience drama and performance activities led by the active members of their workplace, when factory production was taking up more and more of their waking time? What exactly were workers’ after-hours cultural practices in socialist China, when they were at once distinct from professional drama and performance and not inferior? Drawing on performance scripts and investigation reports from state factories in Great Leap Forward Shanghai, this paper examines how after-hours cultural production at the margins of factory labor placed the value of drama and performance in the sensorium of workers’ everyday life and created new possibilities of sociality in the collective workplace.
“Amateur” and “Professional” Musical Culture in Socialist and Post-socialist China
Ling Zhang (SUNY Purchase College)
This paper examines the transformation of amateur music-making in socialist and post-socialist China, focusing on its role in blurring the boundaries between professionalism and amateurism while fostering cultural resistance against elitist control of creative expression. During the socialist era, the masses were encouraged to participate in music creation alongside trained cultural workers. Amateur musicians performed folk and revolutionary songs in factories, communes, workers’ clubs and cultural palaces, embodying collective zeal and rhythm. Documentaries such as China! (1965) by Felix Greene and Land of Dawn (1967) by Toshie Tokieda captured these vibrant scenes, paralleling similar movements in global socialist and leftist contexts.
The 1985 Chinese film Roadside Guitar Band (dir. Chang Yan) reflects a shift as amateur guitarists challenge cultural norms of professionalism and societal prejudices through original compositions, asserting youthful creativity. However, the post-1990s transition to capitalism, marked by privatization and widespread layoffs, diminished working-class amateur music-making. Since the 2000s, retirees have revived these traditions in urban parks, performing “red” songs with instruments such as saxophones and drums, evoking sonic memory and China’s socialist legacy. This article explores how amateur musical practices, from 1980s guitar bands to contemporary elderly ensembles, articulate social identities, foster community, and reclaim commodified public spaces. By challenging hierarchies between professionalism and amateurism, these practices embody cultural resistance. Employing an interdisciplinary lens across cinema and media, sound, and historical studies, this research underscores the enduring impact of China’s amateur musical culture and its parallels with global traditions of collective music-making.
From “The Hundred Names (Baixing)” to “The Mass (Qunzhong)”: The Evolving Politics of the Multitude in Socialist China
Yaowen Dong (The University of Memphis)
This paper examines the politics of “the masses” in 20th-century China. Since the early 20th century, Chinese leftist intellectuals and CCP revolutionaries have employed various terms—such as Baixing, Renmin, and Qunzhong—to conceptualize the multitude subject to governance. This study compares the traditional concept of Baixing, rooted in the Spring and Autumn Period, with its reinterpretation within the socialist movement’s mass politics. It explores the ideological implications of Baixing, Qunzhong, and Renmin as reflected in the writings of socialist thinkers such as Wu Han, Guo Moruo, and Mao Zedong. I argue that, despite the apparent ideological shift within 20th-century socialist consciousness, the characterization of the governed as passive, silent, apolitical, and often suffering—embedded in the concept of Baixing—largely persisted in the socialist notion of Qunzhong. This passive and apolitical framing of the governed often clashed with the revolutionary ideals of mobilization and agency while simultaneously reinforcing the paternalistic approach of the state.
马育新于2003获得美国明尼苏达大学历史系博士， 现任美国肯塔基路易斯维尔大学历史系教授。她主要研究研究二十世纪中国社会性别和文化史. 她的英文发表包括两本专著 和多篇文章和书章。 Colonial Tactics and Everyday Life: Workers of Manchuria Film Association（University of Wisconsin Press, 2023; Best Scholarly Publication Award, Association of Chinese Professor of Social Sciences 2024）； Women Journalism and Feminism in China, 1898-1937 (Cambria, 2010). 前者探讨了日本控制的满洲国电影协会的中国演员， 导演， 剧作家和技术人员的生活和工作经历； 后者探讨了20世纪早期的中国女报人通过女性报刊中建构多元女性主义话语，营造女性文化的空间。
这次讲座的内容史基于她2025 年7月出版的中文专著《从闺阁到报錧： 中国早期妇女报刊中的女性公共话语， 1898-1937》。 （香港中文大学出版社）
她曾于2021-2024年间担任学术刊物American Review of China Studies 的主编， 曾任Southeast Conference of Association for Asian Studies 2022 年的会长。 目前，她在研究当代中国的体育文化和体育人的生命体验。
