Jennifer Altehenger

Jennifer Altehenger is an Associate Professor of Chinese History and Jessica Rawson Fellow in Modern Asian History at the University of Oxford's History Faculty. She previously held positions as Senior Lecturer at King's College London and An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.

Her research focuses on material culture, design, industry, and legal history in 20th-century China, particularly under state socialism. She explores how furniture design and manufacturing shaped modern China's global economic role and how legal education functioned as a governance tool despite perceptions of 'lawlessness' during the Mao era. Key works include Socialism by Design (forthcoming) and Legal Lessons (2018).

Jennifer has received grants and fellowships from the AHRC, British Academy, and Leverhulme Trust. She co-edits the Cambridge Studies in the History of the People's Republic of China and Transformations of Modern China, and serves on editorial boards for Cultural and Social History and Twentieth Century China.

Current doctoral advisees include Wing Lam Michelle Chan, Yat I Fung, Adrian Kwong, Yaxi Liu, and Weihan Sun. She teaches courses on China since 1900, global history, and comparative socialist statecraft.