Assistant Professor/Lecturer in Modern East Asia, Department of History, University College London, United Kingdom
23 Gordon Square, UCL History Department, London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom | Twitter: @qiu_nora
Nora is an historian of modern East Asia, with a predominant focus on the period between 1600 to 2000. Her research focuses on the social interactions among people from diverse cultures in the Qing Empire, the Republic of China, and the People's Republic of China, with a particular emphasis on how power and identity shaped economic development. She is also deeply engaged in exploring broader questions about the roots of inequality and the process of modernization. Currently, she is working on four major projects: the material culture of Qing, Republican, and contemporary China; legal pluralism and borderland governance in Qing; the origins of East Asia's payment systems and international trade; and environmental, political, and economic history of Jiangbei. Prior to joining the faculty at UCL, she taught at both the LSE and the University of Oxford.
Nora's first academic monograph, "Living the Qing Way: Objects, Power, and Identity in Late Imperial China" which is in preparation, scrutinizes the cultural and ethnic identity of the elite in the Qing Empire. Focusing on material culture, it examines the Qing elite's possessions, as recorded in confiscation inventories, to provide insights into their identity, through dress, household goods and cultural and literary activities. The findings challenge the theory of Han assimilation, suggesting that the Manchu elite preserved a distinct cultural identity separate to their Han peers. It also uncovers evidence of a unified hybrid Qing culture shared by Manchu and Han senior officials that was distinct from the Manchu and Han cultures that persisted among the populace. Signs of this "unified" Qing culture existed more widely in the public sphere. In the domestic sphere, it was evident only in the homes of wealthy senior officials. The remaining elite Han and Manchus continued to adhere distinctly to their ancestral ways of living.
Language: Fluent in Chinese, Classical Chinese, English, German, Japanese; Reading Manchu, Mongolian, Classic Tibetan, Basic Russian, Malay, Arabic | Software: STATA, R, EXCEL, QGIS,
Education: Ph.D in Economic History, LSE | M.Sc., Merit, in Economic History (Research), LSE | B.A Cum laude honor thesis in Economics & History, Mount Holyoke College, USA
#modernity #identity #material-culture #animal-history #women #diasporas
Reference:
Patrick Wallis, Professor of Economic History, Head of Department, LSE
Lars Laamann, Senior Lecturer/ Associate Professor of History, Head of Department, SOAS
Evelyn Rawski, Professor Emerita of History, University of Pittsburgh
Catherine R Schenk, Professor of History, University of Oxford
Jonathan Lipman, Professor Emeritus of History, MHC
Kent Deng, Professor of Economic History, LSE
Alejandra Irigoin, Associate Professor of Economic History, LSE
Oliver Volckart, Professor of Economic History, LSE