Yulian Wu

Yulian Wu is Associate Professor of History at Michigan State University, specializing in Late Imperial China with focus on Qing dynasty material culture, gender relations, and ethnic policies. Her office is located in the Old Horticulture Building.

Her research examines:

• Manchu court ethnic policies through material culture
• Gender relations transformation in High Qing period (1680-1820)
• Huizhou salt merchants' sociopolitical roles
• Nephrite jade production/consumption in empire-building

Publications demonstrate consistent focus on merchant networks, jade artifacts, and gender performance. Recent works explore jade's role in territorial symbolism and merchant charity as status performance. Earlier scholarship established foundations in gender and material culture studies.

Wu's first monograph 'Luxurious Networks' (2017) analyzes merchant-court relations, while her current project 'Crafting Jade' examines jade's significance in Qing imperial expansion using Chinese and Manchu archival sources.