Valerie Hansen is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University's Department of History. She specializes in Chinese history to 1600, the Silk Road, and global medieval connectivity. Her research bridges legal, religious, and economic dimensions of pre-modern societies. Hansen’s work includes groundbreaking books such as The Year 1000 (2020), redefining globalization’s origins, and The Silk Road: A New History (2012), integrating archaeological and textual sources. She led the Luce Foundation-funded Silk Road Project (1995–1998), unifying Turfan artifacts. Her articles span legal pluralism in Silk Road cities, Liao dynasty material culture, and Viking exploration’s global impacts. Awards include American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellowship (2021) and Collège de France lectureship (2019). Hansen collaborates internationally, editing volumes on textiles as money and Song-Yuan studies. Her research emphasizes interdisciplinary methods, blending history with archaeology and art.
University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUnited States
Yujie Pu is a Lecturer in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois within the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of late imperial and modern China, with interdisciplinary intersections in medicine, psychiatry, law, and religion. Specializes in legal and medical interactions in historical Chinese murder cases Explores global history of psychiatry and comparative Euro-Asian medical history Teaches courses spanning East Asian civilization surveys to specialized seminars on Qing dynasty history and Chinese medical traditions Her current book project examines legal justice, medical authority, and madness in China from 1600-1930, alongside comparative studies of insanity, doctor-patient relationships, and Manchu medical texts.
Professor Tobie Meyer-Fong is a cultural historian specializing in early modern and modern China at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. She serves as Department Chair and has been teaching at the university since 2000. With a PhD from Stanford University and bachelor's degree from Yale, her research examines social and cultural transformations in China since 1600. She has held visiting positions at multiple international institutions and serves as editor of Late Imperial China . Her scholarship focuses on East Asian social structures, religious practices, and identity formation during periods of political change. Meyer-Fong actively promotes language training and area expertise development, participating in public intellectual programs and contributing to media discussions on Chinese culture.
Richard Vinograd is the Christensen Fund Professor in Asian Art and a Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at Stanford University. He has held this position since 2003 and previously served as Chair of the Department of Art & Art History (1995–2002 and 2009–2010). He has also held academic roles at the University of Southern California and Columbia University. Education: B.A. in Art History from UCLA (1970), M.A. and Ph.D. in History of Art from UC Berkeley (1972, 1979). Research focuses on Chinese portraiture, landscape painting, urban cultural spaces, and inter-media studies. Notable publications include Boundaries of the Self: Chinese Portraits, 1600–1900 (1992) and Chinese Art & Culture (2001). He has authored over 30 journal articles and contributed to exhibitions and catalogues. Recent courses include Chinese Buddhist Painting: Visions and Practices and New Landscapes of China: Ecologies, Media, Imaginaries . Awards: Fellowships: Stanford Humanities Center (2012–2013; 1993–1994) Shimada Prize Lecturer in Asian Art (1994) Mellon Fellowship for Chinese Studies (1986–1987) Advises doctoral and master's students, including Erica Yao and Jill Lyu. Active in curriculum development and interdisciplinary programs like the Center for East Asian Studies.
University of California, Los AngelesUnited States
Yinghui Wu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), specializing in early modern Chinese literature of the Ming and Qing periods. Their academic work bridges traditional Chinese literary studies with contemporary media theory, creating innovative approaches to understanding historical cultural practices. Education: Ph.D. in Chinese & Comparative Literature, Washington University in St. Louis M.A. in English Language and Literature, Peking University B.A. in English, Renmin University of China Professor Wu's research program centers on rethinking Chinese drama and performance cultures through the lens of early modern media studies. Their work challenges conventional paradigms that treat plays merely as literary texts or theatrical performances, arguing instead for understanding drama as part of a broader media ecology. Drawing on concepts like media archaeology (which examines pre-electronic media forms while critiquing technocentric views of media history) and media ecology (which considers the interconnectedness of media systems), Wu conceptualizes media expansively to include semiotic elements (language, writing, image), technical materials (manuscript, print, paper), and cultural practices (music, dance, drama). This interdisciplinary approach reveals how early modern Chinese drama functioned as 'expanding and changing processes of cultural innovation' through the refashioning and multiplying of media. Wu's publication record demonstrates a consistent focus on how drama intersects with various media forms in early modern China. The articles show progression from analyzing specific textual practices (the 2016 T'oung Pao article on eight-legged essays) to more comprehensive media theoretical frameworks (the 2025 East Asian Publishing and Society article on illustrated plays). The research reveals patterns of cross-generic experimentation and the fluid boundaries between literary forms in Ming dynasty China, with particular attention to how visual elements, textual annotations, and performance practices created complex reading and viewing experiences. Professor Wu is currently working on several significant projects including a monograph Playing with Plays: Drama and Early Modern Chinese Media Ecologies (forthcoming 2025) from Brill, and research on 'environments as media' through Pan Zhiheng's writings, broken bonds between performers and patrons in seventeenth-century China, and the information ecology of early modern China. They have also co-edited Emotions in Non-Fictional Representations of the Individual, 1600-1850: Between East and West (2021), demonstrating their commitment to cross-cultural scholarly dialogue.
University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUnited States
Robert Markley is the W.D. and Sara E. Trowbridge Professor of English at the University of Illinois, affiliated with the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory and the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies. His research bridges early modern literature, colonial studies, and science fiction, with a focus on intersections between literary imagination and scientific exploration. Key research interests include 17th- and 18th-century literature, the representation of China and the Pacific in English texts, and the cultural history of Mars exploration. His major works include *The Far East and the English Imagination, 1600–1730* and *Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination*, which explore how scientific and colonial discourses shape literary narratives. Editorial roles include co-editing *AnthropoScene: The SLSA Book Series* and *The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation*. He has been recognized with a Locus Award (Non-Fiction Finalist, 2020) for contributions to speculative and environmental humanities.
Sue Gronewold is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at Kean University , where she has been teaching courses on Asian history since 2001. She served as Department Chair from 2008 to 2011 and coordinates the World History Program. Education : Ph.D. and M.A. in Modern Chinese History from Columbia University; M.A. and B.A. in History and Education/French from the University of Wisconsin Her research focuses on modern East Asia , particularly on topics like prostitution, women's roles, transnational encounters, and historical memory. She authored Beautiful Merchandise: Prostitution in China 1860-1936 and contributed a chapter to the 2017 Brill Press publication Selling Sex in World Cities 1600 to the Present . She has been actively involved in the Holocaust and Genocide Program at Kean, specializing in Asian genocide studies, with emphasis on tribunals in post-atrocity contexts like Bangladesh. Her work also includes international collaborations, such as the 2012 project with Amsterdam’s International Institute for Social History on global prostitution history. She co-directed three international conferences on China in the World, including the 2017 fashion symposium, and contributes to teacher training programs through Columbia University’s Asia for Educators Project.
