During AY 2007-08 I am an An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University.

I teach modern Chinese history.

My research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of modern China, particularly on the history of modern student activism in the 20th century.

I am working on a manuscript concerning the time and place where this history began, Beijing University during the May Fourth Movement on 1919. I explore how student activism was not simply a reflection of intellectual change; rather, students learned their politics from the experience of the changing lived environment of the university and the city. In turn, political expression occurred in the students’ lived practice, in classroom, dorms, clothing, teaching routines, and associations. By looking at all these aspects, I embed political history in the practice of everyday life.

I bring the same approach in my teaching: in my courses on the history of Modern China and Modern East Asia, I introduce a variety of sources trying to highlight how historical material can be found in familiar yet neglected places. I look forward to teaching a seminar on the East Asian city in a comparative perspective, as well as a course on Communist China.

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The University of Arizona, Department of East Asian Studies
E-mail: kaniaj@u.arizona.edu