Ph.D.; Chinese history, University of California, Los Angeles
MA; Chinese history, University of California, Los Angeles
BA; Chinese history, University of British Columbia
He received his doctorate from UCLA in Chinese history, specializing in Ming (1368 - 1644)
intellectual history. His dissertation, "The Rogue Classicist: Feng Fang (1493 - 1566) and his
Forgeries," dealt with a set of alternate versions of major texts in the Confucian canon. Unraveling
these forgeries required an examination of their material and social context of their creation and of
major and minor issues in mid-Ming classical studies. The topic entailed a close study of the collection,
ownership and dissemination of books as well as an inquiry into the nature and role of Ming paleography,
since most of the forgeries were written in a unique, pseudo-ancient script. The two most successful
of the forgeries, versions of the Great Learning and the Poetry Classic, turn out to be
complex responses to major (but sometimes overlooked) issues in the study of these texts.
His research languages include Chinese, Japanese and French, knowledge of German.
Major Publications:
“Artifacts of Authentication: People Making Texts Making Things in Late Imperial China,”
forthcoming in François Louis and Peter Miller, eds., Antiquarian Life and Learning in Late
Renaissance Europe and Late Imperial China, Yale University Press, 2007.
“Old Scripts, New Actors: European Encounters with Chinese Writing, 1550–1700,” forthcoming in
East Asian Science, Technology and Medicine 26 (forthcoming Winter 2006)
“Not Written in Stone: Ming Readers of the Great Learning and the Impact of Forgery”
Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 66/1 (June, 2006)
