معرفی
Yu-chi Chang is a historian of modern China who will join Vassar College as an Assistant Professor of History in Fall 2024. She holds a PhD from Brown University and undergraduate/master's degrees from National Taiwan University, specializing in premodern and modern Chinese history. Her interdisciplinary research bridges intellectual history, cultural studies, and historical geography.
Chang's work examines knowledge production, territorial conceptualization, and state-building in 1930s–1940s China. She analyzes how visual media like maps, textbook illustrations, and historical metaphors (e.g., depicting China as a 'mulberry leaf') shaped public perceptions of sovereignty during periods of foreign aggression. Her approach emphasizes grassroots intellectual movements and the repurposing of historical symbols (such as Song dynasty general Yue Fei) in modern nationalism.
Her publications demonstrate a consistent focus on spatial imagination and power dynamics. Recent articles explore territorial representation in Republican-era China and epistemic imperialism in paleontological expeditions, utilizing visual analysis and archival research from Taiwan and U.S. collections.
Chang is currently developing her dissertation into a book manuscript titled Imagining Sovereignty: Maps and State-Building in Modern China, which investigates Nationalist cartographic projects and the enduring cultural impact of territorial imagery. Her research has been published in journals including Twentieth-Century China and Isis.
