Bio
Qiong Zhang is a native of southern China. She received her BA and MA in philosophy from Wuhan University, China, and her Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard University. She has conducted research and teaching at Harvard, UC Berkeley, UCLA, WCSU, and SIUC before moving to Winston Salem, North Carolina in fall 2008. At Wake Forest, she teaches surveys and upper-level courses on Chinese history, survey of world civilizations to 1500, and a first-year seminar on traditional Chinese science and medicine.
Her research fields are early modern Chinese intellectual and cultural history and the history of China’s encounter with the West since the sixteenth century. Her book on the reception of the notion of the globe in seventeenth century China, entitled, Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery, was published by Brill in June 2015. For details, please see: (http://www.brill.com/products/book/making-new-world-their-own-chinese-encounters-jesuit-science-age-discovery)
Professor Zhang received the 2015 Academic Excellence Award of the Chinese Historians in the United States (CHUS) on account of this book.
Her new book projects explore the knowledge ecology of early modern China, focusing on the cultural context and social networks in which Bowu learning (or natural history) and meteorological knowledge were produced and circulated.
Background
Education:
B.A. Wuhan University, China
M.A. Wuhan University, China
Ph.D. Harvard University
Academic Appointments:
Wake Forest University. Associate Professor (2015- ); Assistant Professor (2008-2015)
Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Assistant Professor (2005-2008)
Western Connecticut State University. Assistant Professor (1999-2002)
University of California, Los Angeles. Visiting Assistant Professor (1998-99)
- HST 103 World Civilizations to 1500
This course surveys the evolution of world civilizations from around 3500 BCE to 1500 CE. Within a roughly chronological framework, it seeks to highlight the broad patterns of development among major human communities, especially those on the Eurasian continent and in Africa, with respect to their political and social institutions, economic life, values, intellectual traditions and religious beliefs.
2. FYS 100 Mystery of Qi: Traditional Chinese Perspectives on Mind, Body and Personal Well-Being
This seminar investigates how cultural constructs inform the ways in which people think about, experience and govern their bodies. In particular, we will examine the conceptions of Qi (Ch’i), primordial or vital energy, in classical Chinese cosmology and medicine and the critical roles they played in the development of Chinese food culture, a variety of therapeutic methods, religious practices, styles of artistic performance, visual and literary representations of the body, and the martial arts traditions. We will highlight the distinctive features of the Chinese Qi-centered view of the body through comparisons with those in classical Greek medicine and modern biomedicine. We will also explore the scientific and epistemological issues involved in the efforts by modern laboratory scientists to capture and measure Qi. This course will be an interdisciplinary exercise drawing on the analytical tools from anthropology, the history of science, art history, literary studies, philosophy and religion.
3. FYS 100 Coming of Age in the People’s Republic of China
This seminar invites you on a journey to discover the history of the People’s Republic of China by exploring the coming-of-age experiences of Chinese youths during the Maoist Era (1949-1976) and the Reform Era (1978- the present). In particular, you will focus on two groups of youths: the “Red Guards” generation, the major agents of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) launched by Mao, and the Chinese millennials/Gen Zers, which may include you yourself and/or some of your classmates or neighbors on campus. You will learn about their conditions of life, education, relationships, aspirations, choices, and actions, investigating questions such as: What were their dreams and passions, vulnerabilities, anxieties, and fears? How did individual youths’ trajectories differ due to their families’ social standing, areas of residence, and ethnic origins? How did the broader political and social structure and government policies of their time shape their personal growth, socialization, and moral development? How did their political activism and collective action in turn shape the course of Chinese history? And for those of you who are not Chinese, how are these life stories of your Chinese counterparts similar or different from your own? You will try to answer these and many other questions like a good historian, by critically examining a variety of primary sources – these individuals’ memoirs and oral histories, songs and music, art and performances, and other documentary records – and by interviewing some of these individuals yourselves.
4. HST 244 Pre-Modern China
This course surveys Chinese history from high antiquity to 1850. It covers such basic themes as the evolution of political, legal and social institutions, the development of major philosophical and religious traditions, and the achievements in science, technology, literature and the arts. Students are invited to explore these themes by engaging a variety of primary sources, ranging from archeological artifacts, historical documents, philosophical texts, poems and novels to art works.
5. HST 245 Modern China
This course studies modern China from 1600 to the present, focusing on the major political, economic, and cultural transformations occurring in China during this period within the context of modernization, imperialism, and (semi) colonialism, world wars and civil wars, revolution and reform, and the ongoing processes of globalization.
6. HST 311W: Special Topics — Economy and Society in Post-Mao China
The turn from Mao to the Market in 1978 has resulted in a Chinese miracle that at once excites and baffles the world. The unfolding of a series of reforms that began that year has produced unprecedented economic growth and radical social transformation. Just exactly what this growth and transformation entail for the people of the People’s Republic, both men and women, across different geographical regions, ethnic groups, and social classes? In this course we will delve into this question by juxtaposing a close reading of official pronouncements and scholarly studies of post-Mao China with a perusal of oral histories, personal memoirs, documentary films, music, art, blog posts, and other forms of social media. All required readings are in English.
7. Early Modern Global Encounters: China and the World, 1400-1800 (Retitled: China and the World in the Age of Discovery)
This course focuses on China’s encounters with the wider early modern world, beginning roughly from the Zheng He Voyages to the Indian Ocean (1405-1433) in the early Ming dynasty and ending with the British Embassy (1792–1794) and the Dutch Embassy (1795) to the Qianlong Court in the mid-Qing. The course examines the processes and consequences of these global encounters between diverse historical actors, Chinese and foreign: explorers, traders, entrepreneurs, diplomats, missionaries, scholars, and pirates, among others. In particular, we investigate two sets of issues: how did the arrival of New World silver and crops, European firearms, Catholicism, and Renaissance learning in China help transform Chinese economy, modes of warfare and empire-building, thought, and culture, and how did the global circulation of Chinese commodities, aesthetic, philosophies, and healing arts in turn shape the early modern experiences in Europe, Americas, and elsewhere? All required readings are in English.
8. HST 343 The Silk Roads
The Silk Road summons visions of caravans or freighters laden with silk, spices, and other exotics making their way from China and Japan to the Mediterranean and the British Isles. This course explores the global exchanges across land and sea from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Era and their impact on the states and stateless societies connected by the Silk Roads.
9. HST 352 Ten Years of Madness: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966 to 1976
This course offers a history of the Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. The class examines the origins, consequences, and collective memories of the catastrophic political events and the social and cultural transformations that took place in China during the last decade of Mao’s leadership.
10. HST 390 Research Seminar: Early Modern East-West Encounters, ca. 1450-1800
This course explores a variety of cross-cultural encounters that took place around the globe during the Age of Discovery (ca. 1450 to 1800), focusing on the interactions between European agents — explorers, pirates, traders, colonial administrators, and Catholic missionaries, among others – and their local interlocutors of East Asia, especially China. In particular, it asks how such exchanges facilitated the production and spread of new knowledge for all parties involved, culminating in the discovery of many “new worlds” – formerly unknown lands and peoples, new technologies, ideas, and intellectual traditions, and new understanding of human history and self-identity. In their individual research projects, students may choose to study historical cases of global encounters involving world geographical regions other than Europe and East Asia.
11. HST 390, Research Seminar: The Silk Road and Its Modern Transformation
This seminar explores the history of the Silk Road exchange, defined here in the broadest terms possible as the meeting of peoples and movement of things — objects, germs, technologies, practices, tastes, styles, and ideas – across cultural and geographical boundaries occurring along the premodern Silk Road network and its early- and late-modern variants. We will ask questions such as: how did the network and infrastructure of the Silk Road exchange evolve over time, especially across the pre- and early- modern divide? How did various human agencies (empires, merchant groups, religious pilgrims or missionaries, diplomats, willing or forced migrants, and travelers, among others) propel or carry out such cross-cultural trade and exchange? And how did such encounters and exchange shape the minds and life paths of individuals and the developmental trajectories of societies that were impacted by such contact? We will begin with a brief survey of this history and relevant primary sources in English and use three cases (the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s journeys to India, 629-645, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo’s travels to China under Mongol rule, 1271-1295, and the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci’s missionary career in late Ming China, 1583-1610) to test various research methodologies and historical interpretations. Seminar participants will pursue research projects on topics of their own choosing, which may pertain to cross-cultural encounters and exchange of any time period and world region.
- Transnational Studies of Twentieth-Century China, a special-theme issue of American Journal of Chinese Studies, vol. 30, no. 2. (October 2023), edited by Qiong Zhang and Yi Sun.
- Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery (Brill, 2015). 435pp. Winner of 2015 Academic Excellence Award of the Chinese Historians in the United States (CHUS). For more information about this book, click here.
- Kexue lilun moxing de jiangou (The Construction of a Scientific Theoretical Model). Zhejiang, China: Zhejiang Science and Technology Press, 1990. Co-authored with Liu Wenjun and Yu Qiming (I was the first and major author, initiating the project and completing eighty-five percent of the entire manuscript). (In Chinese)
- “Meteoromancy” (30pgs). In Handbook of Chinese Divination Techniques, edited by Stephen Kory. Forthcoming with Brill.
- “Parallels, Engagement, and Integration: The Ricci Maps and Their Afterlives in Ming-Qing China as a Case Study of Intertwined Global Early Modernity.” Chapter 4 Reimagining the Globe and Cultural Exchange: The East Asian Legacies of Matteo Ricci’s World Map, a peer-reviewed volume edited by Laura Hostetler, 95-136. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2024. Volume with Open-Access at: https://brill.com/edcollbook-oa/title/68461
- “Infrastructure of Science-Making in Early Modern China.” In Asian Review of World Histories, vol. 11, no. 1 (Special Forum: Approaches to Science, Technology, and Environment in Chinese History, edited by Xin Zhang), (Jan 2023): 90-129. https://doi.org/10.1163/22879811-bja10013
- “My ‘American Dream’: An Endless Quest for Pedagogical Perfection” (我的 “美国梦”:教海无涯,学无止境). In Teaching History in America: From Students to Professors (在美国教历史：从书桌到讲台), edited by Ping Yao and Xi Wang, 278-294. Beijing: Peking University Press, 2022.
- “Oracle of the Clouds.” In Zeichen der Zukunft: Wahrsagen in Ostasien und Europa / Signs of the Future. Divination in East Asia and Europe, edited by Marie-Therese Feist, Michael Lackner, and Ulrike Ludwig, 201-205. Heidelberg: arthistoricum.net, 2021. (Book downloadable at: https://doi.org/10.11588/arthistoricum.763) (This book features a catalogue and accompanying essays for an exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum (Nuremberg, Germany, December 2020 to September 2021).
- “The Jesuit Heresiological Discourse as Enlightenment Project in Early Modern China.” Journal of World History Vol. 28, No. 1 (2017): 31-60.
- “Matteo Ricci’s World Maps in Late Ming Discourse of Exotica.” Horizons: Seoul Journal of Humanities Vol. 1, No. 2 (December 2010): 215-50.
- “From ‘Dragonology’ to Meteorology: Aristotelian Natural Philosophy and the Beginning of the Decline of the Dragon in China,” Early Science and Medicine 14.1-3 (2009): 340-68.
- “Hybridizing Scholastic Psychology with Chinese Medicine: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Catholic’s Conceptions of Xin (Mind and Heart),” Early Science and Medicine 13.4 (August 2008): 313-60.
- “About God, Demons, and Miracles: The Jesuit Discourse on the Supernatural in Late Ming China,” Early Science and Medicine 4.1 (February 1999): 1-36.
- “Demystifying Qi: The Politics of Cultural Translation and Interpretation in the Early Jesuit Mission to China,” in Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulation, ed. Lydia Liu (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 74-106.
- “Translation as Cultural Reform: Jesuit Scholastic Psychology in the Transformation of the Confucian Discourse on Human Nature,” in The Jesuits: Culture, Learning and the Arts, 1540-1773, eds. G. A. Bailey, S. Harris, T.F. Kennedy, S.J., and J.W. O’Malley, S.J. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 364-79. (An updated version of this article was reprinted in Revista Portuguesa de História Do Livro (Lisbon) Vol. 26 (2010): 365-393.)
Professor Zhang has reviewed many scholarly books and assessed manuscripts for Isis: A Journal of the History of Science Society, East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM),《自然科学史》, NTM: Journal of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, International Journal of Divination and Prognostication, Renaissance Quarterly, Journal of World History, Journal of Early Modern History, Journal of Jesuit Studies, Chinese Historical Review, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Frontiers of History in China, Ancient West and East, Cambridge University Press, Brill, Rowman & Littlefield, among other academic periodicals and presses.