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Home > Graduate Studies > Areas of Graduate Study : East Asian History

East Asian History

Joe Dennis: Minneapolis is one of the premier places in North America to study Ming history. Not only are two active Ming historians on the faculty, but many other scholars inside and outside the department also participate in the Ming history community. Ann Waltner has held a classical Chinese reading group at her house for over a decade and throws lots of good parties. Minnesota is a center of Chinese history scholarship: Professor Farmer is the managing editor of Ming Studies; Professor Waltner is editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. The University's library collection is especially strong in Ming materials and can provide essential resources for a dissertation. The Chinese historians are well connected in China, Taiwan, and Japan and can provide necessary introductions.

The study and teaching of East Asian history has undergone tremendous expansion and change in the past decade, reflecting the region’s growing global significance. The historiography of East Asia is similarly undergoing great change and taking on importance well beyond the field.

The East Asia faculty at the University of Minnesota have diverse historiographical interests and strengths. The work of our faculty and the training we provide to our graduate students emphasize both attentive archival work and engagement with ongoing debates in our field.

We have large number of students from China and Taiwan who work closely with faculty. Many of our graduate students have received GRPP grants that provide summer funding to work jointly with faculty members on research papers. 

Our East Asia library has a growing collection. Through a consortium with other Big Ten schools we have access to tens of thousands of volumes via interlibrary loan.

The China Center also offers potential resources to students.

Participating Faculty

  • Ann Waltner writes on the social history of sixteenth and seventeenth century China, with special interest in gender, kinship and religion. She is also active in the field of world history. 
  • Liping Wang studies cultural, social and political history of twentieth-century and Qing China. Her research focuses is urban and intellectual history.
  • Hiromi Mizuno studies the intellectual, cultural and political history of twentieth-century Japan. Her interests focus on questions of modernity, nationalism, colonialism, gender, science and technology, and popular culture.
  • Ted Farmer works in the fields of Ming history and world history. He has worked on Ming legal history and is now studying representations of empire in Ming gazetteer maps. He is interested in comparative early modern history, globalization and the history of publication. He publishes the journal Ming Studies and is director of publications for the Center for Early Modern Studies.
  • Christopher Isett focuses on eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century China and comparative economic history. He works on the economy, social change, peasants and village politics, legal change and customary law, merchant organizations, nutrition and wellbeing. He has extensive archival experience in China and works internationally with scholars in Japan, China, and Taiwan.

Affiliated Faculty

 

Graduate Features

Graduate Studies
Rachel Ayers
1130 Heller Hall
271 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Phone: 612-624-5840
Email: histdgs@umn.edu

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