Kelsey Granger

Dr. Kelsey Granger serves as an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich's Institute of Sinology and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. A Cambridge-trained sinologist (PhD 2022), she specializes in the material culture of dynastic China and Silk Roads civilizations with groundbreaking research on animal histories.

Her scholarly focus centers on human-animal relationships in early, medieval, and early modern China, employing interdisciplinary methodologies from archaeology, philology, and animal studies. Current work analyzes 20,000 Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) administrative documents from the Xuanquan postal station to investigate human-horse cohabitation, naming practices, and emotional bonds.

Publications reveal consistent thematic evolution from tomb dogs to postal horses, demonstrating rigorous analysis of excavated manuscripts to reconstruct interspecies dynamics. This work bridges historical anthropology, archaeozoology, and Silk Road studies through meticulous textual examination.

Scientific recognition includes:

• Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship

Research is conducted within LMU's Institute of Sinology (Kaulbachstr. 53, Munich) with RCC collaboration. Future work will expand her Xuanquan project to explore emotional dimensions of human-horse relationships, repositioning frontier postal stations as sites of interspecies negotiation rather than mere administrative outposts.