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Szonyi Named Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Cambridge, Mass. - August 27, 2009 - Michael A Szonyi, whose study of the last 600 years of Chinese social history has been informed by rigorous fieldwork and close attention to once-inaccessible local archives in China, has been named professor of Chinese history in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, 2009.
Szonyi was previously John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard, where he has been a member of the faculty since 2005.
"Professor Szonyi stands out for his successful collaborations with leading social historians in China," says Diana Sorensen, dean of arts and humanities in FAS. "He has combined sophisticated reading of traditional historical sources from libraries and archives with intensive fieldwork to produce scholarship described by his colleagues as 'innovative,' 'astute,' and 'brilliant.' He is also known as an inspiring teacher with a remarkable ability to engage students in thinking through complex issues."
The scope of Szonyi's research is clear from the two books he has published in English: Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 2002), which looks at kinship organization beginning in China's Ming dynasty, and his second, Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which examines the social history of the island of Quemoy under Nationalist military rule after 1949.
He has also written on Chinese religion and sexuality, the Chinese diaspora, and the Ming dynasty military system. Throughout, his diverse writings serve to challenge dominant interpretations of late imperial and modern Chinese history.
Szonyi's attention to local Chinese society and archives has made the significance of regional differences within China increasingly clear. His work has also refined the view, common among Chinese social historians, that kinship and religion expanded in importance after the state retreated from Chinese society after the 11th century. Szonyi paints a more dynamic picture: In essence, he argues that political institutions, social and cultural practices, and religious organizations are continually evolving in relation to one another.
In addition to his two books published in English, Szonyi has translated and introduced to Western audiences Zheng Zhenman's Family and Lineage Organization and Social Change in Ming-Qing Fujian (University of Hawaii Press, 2001). He has also edited a book in Chinese, Ming-Qing Fujian Wudi xinyang ziliao huibian (Documents of the Cult of the Five Emperors in Fujian in Ming and Qing), published in 2006 by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's South China Research Centre.
Szonyi earned his B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1988 and his D.Phil. from the University of Oxford in 1996. He received a Rhodes Scholarship in 1990, and has also studied at Xiamen University and National Taiwan University.
Szonyi was assistant professor of history at McGill University from 1994 to 1998, when he became assistant professor of history at the University of Toronto. He became associate professor at Toronto in 2001, a position he held until joining Harvard in 2005.
Szonyi is a fellow of the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
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