Xia Shi
Associate Professor of History
Marian Hoppin Chair of Asian Studies
Associate Professor of History
Marian Hoppin Chair of Asian Studies
Education
Ph.D., University of California, Irvine
M.A., Peking University
B.A., Beijing Normal University
Professor Shi specializes in Chinese history. Broadly speaking, her research so far has been focusing on investigating traditional China’s encounters with the modern world around the late nineteenth to the first half of the twentieth century, analyzing the subsequent social, cultural, and political reconfigurations, ruptures, and continuities that a variety of Chinese individuals and groups experienced during this process. Specifically, her current research interests include the history of late Qing and Republican China, women and gender, history of religions and “superstition,” history of charity and philanthropy, diplomacy, and environmental disaster response and relief. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, Henry Luce Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Program, among others.
Recent Courses
Chinese History to 1800
Chinese History Since 1800
East Asian Civilization
The World Since 1870: Topics and Themes in Modern World History
Women and Gender in China
The Age of Openness: China Before Mao (1912-49)
Environmental History of China
Historical Methods
Selected Publications
Books
At Home in the World: Women and Charity in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Columbia University Press, 2018).
Articles
“Spirit-Writing and Daoyuan’s Gendered Teachings” (forthcoming in a conference volume on “Spirit-Writing in Chinese History”).
“The Gendered Politics of Socializing and the Emergence of the ‘Public Wife’ in Late Qing Diplomacy,” Research on Women in Modern Chinese History 37 (June, 2021): 139-194.
“Warlords’ Rainmaking: Religion, Science, and Legitimating Governance in Early Republican China,” Frontiers of History in China 15, no. 4 (December 2020): 520-51.
“Just Like a ‘Modern’ Wife? Concubines on the Public Stage in Early Republican China,” Social History 43, no. 2 (February 2018): 211-33.
“Stepping into the Public World: Cases of Guixiu Philanthropic Activities in Late Qing China,” Frontiers of History in China 9, no. 2 (June 2014): 247-79.