I hold the position of Assistant Professor of East Asian History at Grinnell College, and am former Departmental Lecturer in the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford. My work focuses on three interrelated issues: 1) the role of domestic political communication in China's party-state construction, 2) Cold War-era transnational person-to-person and mass media networks, and 3) the experiences of media producers in China today. Through collaborative partnerships with scholars in the U.S., Britain, and Canada I have received support for this research from the John Fell OUP Research Fund (University of Oxford), Economic and Social Research Council of the British Academy, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and Association of Asian Studies. I am an Associate of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies at the University of Iowa, and an Affiliated Researcher with the Leverhulme Trust China’s War with Japan Program at the University of Oxford. At Grinnell College I serve on the following committees: Peace Studies, East Asian Studies, Off-Campus Study. I am also a member of the advisory board of the Center for International Studies, and faculty advisor for off-campus study in the Republic of Korea. In December 2011 I joined the National Committee on United States-China Relations.
TEACHING AND STUDENT MENTORING
My priority is undergraduate research and mentoring, and I am available to work with closely with students on independent study or a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) on topics related to:
- transnational relations of the Communist Party of China
- U.S. foreign policy in East Asia
- propaganda and wartime mobilization
- Grinnell and Grinnellians in Asia, including biographies of Katayama Sen (co-founder of the Communist Party of Japan) and Wu Guozhen (former mayor of Chongqing and Shanghai, and an influential Republic of China politician)
Current mentored projects include student research focusing on: 1) online politics in the People's Republic of China, 2) North Korean military strategy prior to the Korean War, 3) transnational links between China and Eurasia.
RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS
Guide to Using Declassified Documents
An Introduction to GTD (Gettings Things Done)
RESEARCH
I am currently involved in several collaborative research and editing projects related to:
- the visual history of modern China
- grassroots political participation in China between 1949 and 1976
- Cold War transnational relations
- "iGeneration" cinema, independent filmmaking, and local government reform in the contemporary PRC
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
