We Have a History Too: One Hundred Years of Pre-Modern China Studies in the U.S.

This talk will sketch the history of academic study of China in the U.S., beginning in 1920, with attention to how it differed from European Sinology. I see it as a story with intersecting trajectories, including U.S.-China relations and developments in both countries, collaboration between native speakers and language learners, the expansion of higher education, new sources of funding, the founding of scholarly associations, social change that affects academic careers, technological change that affects the life of the scholar, and intellectual change such as the rise of social and economic history, religious studies, women’s studies, environmental studies, and much else. 

Patricia Buckley Ebrey has taught Chinese history and culture for many years, both at the University of Illinois and later the University of Washington. She has played a leadership role helping students learn about Chinese history and civilization. The first edition of her sourcebook, Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, appeared in 1981 and is still widely used. Among her best-known books are The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Women in the Sung Period (1993) and Emperor Huizong (2014). Her 2008 work, Accumulating Culture: The Collections of Emperor Huizong, received the Smithsonian Institution's 2010 Shimada Prize for Outstanding Work of East Asian Art History.

This lecture is supported by the Tang Research Foundation.