معرفی
Madeleine Zelin serves as the Dean Lung Professor of Chinese Studies and History East Asia coordinator within Columbia University's Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures, maintaining active office hours and scholarly engagement.
Her academic foundation includes:
- BA: Cornell University (1970)
- PhD: University of California, Berkeley (1979)
Professor Zelin pioneers research in Modern Chinese Legal and Economic History, challenging conventional narratives about imperial China's economic restrictions through rigorous analysis of legal frameworks, merchant institutions, and customary business practices. Her iconoclastic approach reveals unexpected continuities between law, culture, and market dynamics in early modern China, particularly through case studies of industrial communities like Zigong.
Her publications demonstrate sustained scholarly evolution from eighteenth-century fiscal systems to twentieth-century bankruptcy reforms, consistently emphasizing China's indigenous economic development models within global comparative contexts.
Award recognition includes:
- Fairbank Prize (American Historical Association)
- Alan Sharlin Memorial Award (Social Science History Association)
- Humanities Prize of the International Conference on Asian Studies (ICAS)
She actively cultivates next-generation scholarship as co-director of the AAS New Directions Workshop: Economic History of Asia and founding board member of the International Society for Chinese Law and History, while currently finalizing a book on China's earliest company and bankruptcy law reforms.
