Zhao Ma

Zhao Ma is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese History and Culture at Washington University in St. Louis, where he heads the Chinese Section. He earned his PhD and MA from Johns Hopkins University and additional MA from People's University of China. Ma teaches courses on 20th-century Chinese history, socialist culture, and US-China relations, with research focusing on urban informational spaces during revolutionary periods.

Research explores:

• Urban lower-class experiences during wartime
• Rumormongering and propaganda in revolutionary China
• Social history through legal archives
• Cultural dimensions of Sino-American relations

Publications include award-winning work on wartime Beijing's social history using criminal case files, with current book project examining rumor networks during the Korean War. As Public Intellectual Program Fellow since 2014, he engages with policymakers and media on Chinese politics and US-China relations. Research draws from Beijing Municipal Archives despite increasing access restrictions to sensitive historical materials.