Sijia Cheng

Sijia Cheng is a Research Fellow in the research group 'Quantification from Europe to East Asia' at sin-aps, affiliated with the Chair for Sinology with a Focus on the Intellectual and Cultural History of China at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg. Her research explores the intersection of knowledge, governance, and quantification in modern Chinese history, particularly the adoption of intelligence testing and numerical assessment in 20th-century China. She holds a PhD in Chinese Studies from Heidelberg University (2024), where her dissertation, Turning Filth into Wealth: A Cultural History of Bodily Waste in Late Imperial China, examined the sociocultural and agronomic valorization of waste. She is currently preparing this work for publication as a book.

• Education:
• PhD in Chinese Studies, Heidelberg University (2024)
• MA in Chinese Studies and Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University

Her research interests include the global history of intelligence measurement, the negotiation of scientific concepts in China, and the cultural and environmental dimensions of agronomic practices. She investigates how quantitative methods and biological paradigms shaped intellectual frameworks in modern China, alongside the historical interplay between excrement, governance, and ethics in imperial contexts.