Best MA/PhD Programs in Modern Chinese History?

[kdavid]

While these schools are listed as the best (by that specific source), I'd like to hear the experiences of others out there.

I'm specifically interested in the history of Sino-American relations, intellectual, social and culture history during the Republic period, and Americans in treaty ports.

I'll be traveling with my family (me, my wife, and 3-year-old son, and maybe a fourth!).

Clearly, funded works best as I'd like to devote as much time to studies and research as possible.

Thanks in advance for your time and insights!

[pudewen]

That's a relatively reasonable list for overall quality; at least, all 10 listed programs are extremely good (though I don't know that I would put them in that order or say that they are a definitive top 10) in Asian History, taken as a whole.

But the question you're actually interested is which program is best for you, not what has the best "Asian History" program. For that, the first question you should be asking is the one everyone who comes on here gets told to ask: which historians' work have your found particularly valuable? Who has done projects you find interesting and relevant to your interests? Then look where they are, and apply to those places. That said, any school that has faculty who work on Republican China could work for you; in general, since our field is smaller, you get to be less picky about your advisor's interests, which may not be a terrible thing. One thing I did while applying was to simply go through the faculty listings on department websites to see who they had working on China, look at what those people worked on, and then read something they'd written to get a sense of whether I liked their intellectual approach.

In my opinion, the two most important things are that your advisor works on your time-period (because the sort of training and advice you'll need in terms of finding and using sources differs a lot depending on when you work; the stuff historians of the Republic use is quite different from that which Late Imperial Historians use) and that you respect that person's work.

One more note; I don't know how important the Sino-American relations stuff is to you, but if it is very important, you may want to look at Poli Sci/Government departments as well. Even people working on historical topics related to foreign policy sometimes end up there rather than in History departments. Also, make sure to look at departments of East Asian Studies (or of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, or whatever a particular school calls it). Though sometimes they only have lit people, many of them sometimes have historians, and at some places (my institution is a particular offender in this regard) those historians do not have joint appointments in history and do not so much as appear on the history department webpage. This is less likely to be true for people working on 20th Century China, but it's still worth looking out for when you're trying to figure out what historians are where.

[Mandarin]

In terms of raw faculty quality, informal consensus within the field suggests the following schools, in no specific order: Yale (Perdue), Columbia (Zelin), Princeton (Elman), John Hopkins (Rowe), Chicago (after the Pomeranz hire), UCLA (Wong), Harvard (somewhat trickier after the Harrison departure, as they now lack a true 19th and 20th Century specialist). Berkeley has yet to really recover from Wakeman's passing away. UC San Diego was a powerhouse for many years, but is now in limbo following Esherick's retirement. The US News list is for overall Asian History, which differs significantly from Modern China.

While it's true that fit matters tremendously, students from the above schools tend to monopolize the higher-end Modern China job placements. I have no idea what the placement scene is like for East Asian Studies--the two fields are closely related but treated quite differently on the job market.

If you take funding into consideration, then clearly the best packages come from Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Harvard. Unsurprisingly, marticulation rate is very high (well above 60 percent) at those schools, whereas it's significantly lower at other places--this roughly means that you may have a somewhat more impressive (credential-wise) cohort at those places, if that means anything.

[pudewen]

I wasn't going to list particular schools, since I think kdavid is better off working through this on his own, rather than being given a list of the "best," but since Mandarin put out a bunch of names, it's worth noting that some of them make little sense in relation to kdavid's interests. Perdue doesn't really work on kdavid's period or his topics of interests (and if Havard is "tricky" due to lack of a 19th/20th century person, when it in fact has a 20th century historian in Kirby as well as Perry in the Gov department, then Yale doesn't come close to qualifying given that it lacks a historian of the Republic entirely). Depending on the importance of intellectual history to the OP, Elman could work at Princeton, though, again, he doesn't really work on the Republic (though a junior faculty member, Chen, is probably more in line with kdavid's interests if he does apply there). Rowe also does much more work on the Late Imperial period, though at least he considers himself a modernist. Pomeranz is a reasonable name to mention, since he has done some 20th century work, though he's more an economic historian than any of the fields that kdavid brought up. And though Mandarin dismissed Berkeley, Yeh does work more in line with kdavid's stated interests than do pretty much any of the people that Mandarin mentioned.

Anyway, in general, those names look like a list directed at someone who works on the late imperial period than at someone who works on the Republic. Many of those programs are still worth thinking about, since they have top-notch reputations, and many of the faculty are capable of advising projects on the Republic anyway (especially at places like Columbia and Princeton that also have a specialist in the Republic on their faculty), but that is not a list of the best programs in "Modern" Chinese history, if that is taken to mean (as kdavid seems to mean), the twentieth century, rather than the late imperial period.

[Mandarin]

I'm sorry if my comment Harvard somehow offended, but Kirby has been almost completely disengaged from academic work for the past 15 years or so, so I didn't really think of him. I also assumed we were talking about historians per se, rather than people from other disciplines who have done historical work. Elliott and Szonyi were the people I were thinking of, and although Szonyi would be an interesting person to work with on Cold War history, neither of them have written on topics that fall within 1800 to 1949.

Given OP's stated interests, I assumed he would want to cover both the late Qing and the Republic, and not merely the latter. Nonetheless, all the people I listed--including Perdue and Zelin, who are more known as Qing specialists--have published either a book or multiple articles/reviews over the past decade that cover both the late Qing and Republic. I was also clearly excluding junior faculty, as they are far less reliable as advisors--for example, it's pretty uncertain that Janet Chen will stay on at Princeton.

Again, while I appreciate the need for fit, I wonder if "fit" should be defined as narrowly as it often is in this forum. Especially at the top schools, people do not always work on precisely the same subfields as their advisors. It seems sufficient, to me at least, to have an advisor who casts a broad intelletual net, knows the entire field very well, and has familiarity with your specific interests. Once those basic conditions are met, then his/her overall stature within the field may well be far more important than more narrow considerations of "fit"--in fact, people who are more generalist in their interests seem to enjoy higher stature and influence.

And finally, "Modern China" is generally defined as late Imperial (particularly Qing), Republican and PRC China. Of course, Harvard does seem to have a different opinion of this, considering its insistence on a "post-1912" specialist during their junior search last year.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Mandarin

[pudewen]

I agree with much of your second comment (and was not offended by what you said about Harvard; I just think it's silly to act like Yale is better for a PhD student who works on Modern China because Harvard "lacks a true 19th and 20th Century specialist." Also, it turns out that Elliott's current book project is more focused on the 20th century than any book written by any of the people you mentioned, not that there was any reason you should know that, nor would he make much sense as an advisor for kdavid, given the sorts of topics that he likes to admit students to work on). Fit is often too narrowly defined, but at the same time, there needs to be some level of fit beyond "works on China." Zelin has had a great deal of success advising theses in 20th Century history in a wide range of topic areas, which is why I didn't critique her inclusion. But (and I say this as someone who likes his work a lot), is it really good advice to tell someone whose main interest is Sino-US relations in the Republican period that he should be looking at Perdue as one of his best options as an advisor? Even at Princeton, my impression is that almost all of Elman's students work on either history of science or intellectual history of a specifically late imperial sort; is Princeton really good advice for this poster?

Moreover, while it's not impossible that a Qing specialist could be a good fit, and I do think, for instance, that kdavid probably should apply to Columbia to work with Zelin (though it doesn't hurt that Ko and Lean are there as well), I found it a bit odd to give a listing of faculty without mentioning a single person who clearly focuses on the Republic to a poster who mentioned that as his main temporal interest.

Finally, however you want to define modern China (though I think it's rare to see it starting before the late Qing, in the minds of most historians), most, though not all, of the faculty you mentioned describe their own interests as either "Early Modern" or "Late Imperial" rather than Modern. And, in any case, it was kdavid who mentioned the Republic as his period of primary interest, though I admit it's possible I misread him and he's interested in the Sino-US relations part over a broader time period.

[Mandarin]

Well, if Elliott has decided to move beyond his previous era and topic, then maybe that changes things somewhat. That said, while we're on the subject of current book projects, Elman's is on Republican era Sino-Japanese intellectual and political interaction, whereas Perdue's is on 20th Century Chinese nationalism. When and whether these (including Elliott's project) become fully developed manuscripts is, I think it's fair to say, uncertain.

Would I suggest that someone with an interest in Sino-American relations look seriously at Perdue and Elman? Absolutely. Perdue works, as much as anyone in the field, on diplomatic history and "global history" in general--in fact one of his students works precisely on Sino-American and Sino-Indian relations, although during the PRC. Elman, on the other hand, is heavily invested in his ongoing research in cross-border intellectual and political history, and has access to fairly unique resources in those areas. Come to think of it, three of the four Perdue students that I know work heavily on Republican history, perhaps more than they do on Late Qing history, as do two of Elman's.

Besides, of all the flagship "Modern China" faculty (I'll just take this to mean mid-Qing and afterwards, you may disagree) at major schools, do any of them--apart from Yeh--"clearly focus on the Republic"? Plenty of junior faculty do, but again, they're less effective as advisors.

My larger point, however, is that faculty who have successfully set themselves up as, to some degree, "generalists" who write and advise about a broad range of topics--Zelin, Perdue and Rowe are the most obvious examples of their generation, but the previous generation (Esherick, Kuhn, Spence and Wakeman) were all of this mold--are often preferable as advisors (or references) to those who work exclusively on one or two subfields. Of course, they don't usually get to that stage until fairly late in their careers, but then everyone I mentioned initially is significantly more senior than, say, Elliott, Ko, or Matt Sommer.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Mandarin