معرفی
Thomas M Larkin is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History (Historical Studies) at the University of Bristol, affiliated with Migration Mobilities Bristol. He specializes in the history of China and the US, with a focus on transimperial contact, culture, race, gender, and national identity in colonial and semi-colonial spaces.
His research interests include:
- Sino-American interactions in the nineteenth century
- Digital humanities applications for historical research
- Transimperialism and colonial society
- Gender and race in treaty port societies
Larkin is currently completing his monograph The China Firm: Elite Americans and the Making of British Colonial Society under contract with Columbia University Press, which examines the relationship between American elites and the British imperial project in China. He is also developing a second book project on American transimperialism in China and oversees the British-Academy funded 'Mapping Sino-Foreign Networks and Mobility in China' digital project, which uses NLP, SNA, GIS, and data visualization to reconstruct socio-commercial networks.
His research outputs demonstrate a strong focus on nineteenth-century Sino-American relations, with particular attention to gender, race, and imperial dynamics. Larkin's work appears in journals such as Cultural and Social History, Gender & History, and The Historical Journal.
Among his notable achievements are:
- British Academy Talent Development Award (2022)
- Bristol Faculty of Arts Doctoral Prize for 2020/21 (2021)
- Arts Fieldwork Cost Fund (2016)
Larkin is actively engaged in the academic community as Head of Activities for Bristol's American Studies Research Group and as a supporting researcher for the Hong Kong History Centre. He has taught various undergraduate units at Bristol including 'Modern World,' 'Global Histories,' 'Decolonisation,' 'Horrible Histories,' and 'Dissertations,' and has designed guest lectures for the University of Macau on Pearl River trade networks and gender in colonial society.
His digital humanities work, particularly the 'Mapping Sino-Foreign Networks and Mobility in China' project, represents an innovative approach to historical research that combines traditional scholarship with cutting-edge computational methods.
