Tani Barlow: Areas of Graduate Study

Division: Modern Asia

Possible areas of specialized graduate study include a variety of topics in the history of China since 1800: modernist thought since 1842; social revolution; colonial and revolutionary modernity; history of Chinese social sciences and social theory; the question of women in Chinese feminism, Marxism and anarchism; the inter-war years and intellectual change; modern women's history. The precise content of the field is defined in consultation with the professor and by course work completed under the professor's supervision.

Graduate Students may also prepare graduate fields in the History of Modern China to serve a number of purposes: as a teaching field, e.g. for those preparing to teach a modern China, Asia or world survey; as a source of methodological or interdisciplinary insight; as a field in historiography (how Subaltern Studies theory drew on contemporary Maoism, U.S. trends in China studies, etc.); as part of a comparative program in colonialism, feminism, or 20th century revolutions; comparative gender; or comparative civil war and counter-revolution.

Students are expected to develop specific emphases within the field, in consultation with Professor Barlow. You must demonstrate expertise in three sub-fields within the modern China field. Sub-fields may be topical (e.g. "The Chinese Revolution"), thematic (e.g. "gender and modernity in China"), or historiographical (e.g."historiography of the Chinese woman problem").

Division: Comparative History (Comparative Gender & Comparative Colonialisms)

Students may pursue a field in Comparative Gender in whic they consider colonial modernity and national state forms of gendered labor and thought in China, Korea, Japan, and interstices. Students preparing a field in Comparative Colonialisms will consider the question: What is colonial modernity and how are the East Asia and South Asia historiographies distinctive?

*Students may not offer a field in the Comparative History division as a first field.