Chen Song-Chuan

Research Interests

My research interests lie in the field of modern Chinese history, with an emphasis on history from below. Currently I am researching travel journals, letters, personal diaries, and legal documents in order to trace information about Chinese commoners in the international port of Canton before 1842. Their interactions with foreigners and their history in the most important trading port of the long eighteenth century has not been accounted for. I am also working on the Cold War history of Taiwan. This project is rooted in my upbringing on Matsu—one of Taiwan’s Cold War frontier islands. Exploring military archives, private records, and source materials collected form interviews during fieldwork, I am writing a social history of the islanders in the context of the wider global Cold War. Through these two ongoing projects, I want to know how ordinary people made use of and interacted with larger socio-political-economic structures and to explore the possibilities of writing peoples’ history.

Research Expertise:

• Sino-Western relations during the Canton era; Ming and Qing China in global history; Republican China and Taiwan; Chinese Religion

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of Cambridge (2006 — 2009)

Selected Publications

Monography:

Chen, Song-Chuan (2017). Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War, Hong Kong University Press

Refereed Journal Articles:

Chen, Song-Chuan (2018). “The Power of Ancestors: Tombs and Death Practices in Late Qing China’s Foreign Relations, 1845–1914,”Link opens in a new window. Past and Present, 239(1), 113-142.

Chen, Song-Chuan (2012). “An Information War Waged by Merchants and Missionaries at Canton: The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China, 1834-1839,” Link opens in a new windowModern Asian Studies, 46:6 (October 2012), 1705-35

Chen, Song-Chuan (2012). “Shame on You!: Competing Narratives of the Nation in the Laoxikai Incident and the Tianjin anti-French Campaign, 1916-1917,” Twentieth Century China Link opens in a new window37:2 ( May 2012), 121-38

Book Chapters:

Chen, Song-Chuan (2022), "The New Concerned Intellectuals and Civil Society: Democracy Movements in Taiwan”, in Kirrily Freeman and John Munro (eds.), Reading the New Global Order: Textual Transformations of 1989Link opens in a new window (Chapter 6, Bloomsbury, 2022, November)

Chen, Song-Chuan (2015). “Strangled by the Chinese and Kept Alive by the British: Two Infamous Executions and the Discourse of Chinese Legal DespotismLink opens in a new window,” in Richard Ward, ed. A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 199-219

Chen, Song-Chuan (2008). “Chinese Narrator and Western Barbarians: Protestant Missionaries’ Narrative Strategy in their Geographical Writings, 1819-1839,” in Peter Tze Ming Ng and Wu Xiaoxin eds., Studies in Christianity and Chinese Society and Culture (Hong Kong: Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society, 2008), 391-422

Other publications:

• A-Level history: “China’s 1911 Republican Revolution: Fulfilling the Inspiration for Democratic Politics”, in Modern History Review, 23:1 (September 2020)
• Book review essay: "Review of Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age", Review in History (review no. 2367, January 2020)
• A-Level history: “The Opium War and British MerchantsLink opens in a new window”, in Modern History Review, 21:4 (April 2019), 24-27
• Book chapter on teaching history with virtual reality: Linda Fang and Song-Chuan Chen “Enhancing the Learning of History through Virtual Reality: The Thirteen Factories Icube Experience” in Väljataga, Terje, Laanpere, Mart (Eds.) Digital Turn in Schools—Research, Policy, Practice International Council for Educational MediaLink opens in a new window. Springer (2018), 37-50.
• Blog article: “A Ghost Army of Ancestors”, Past and Present Blog, 28 April 2018
• Book review essay: "Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain: the Story of a Secret Brotherhood in Rural China, 1939-1949", Social History 43:4 (October, 2018), 556-558.
• Book review essay: "Southwest China in a Regional and Global Perspective (c.1600-1911): Metals, Transport, Trade and Society", The Economic History Review 71:4 (November 2018), 1431-1432.
• Book review essay: “Luxurious Networks: Salt Merchants, Status, and Statecraft in Eighteenth-Century China.” The Journal of the Historical Association, Volume 103, Issue 354 (January 2018), 159-161.
• Encyclopaedia entry: “Nationalism”, in Michael Dillon (ed.) Encyclopedia of Chinese HistoryLink opens in a new window, (Routledge, 2017).
• Encyclopaedia entry: “Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu)”, in Michael Dillon (ed.) Encyclopedia of Chinese HistoryLink opens in a new window, (Routledge, 2017).
• Book review essay: “From Amorous Histories to Sexual Histories: Tongzhi Writings and the Construction of Masculinities in Late Qing and Modern China”, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 9:3 (Sep 2015).
• Book review essay: “China’s Contested Capital: Architecture, Ritual, and Response in Nanjing, and New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities: Emerging Social, Legal and Governance Orders. The China Journal, No. 73 (January 2015).
• Book review essay: “Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West. (Tonio Andrade, Princeton University Press, 2011.), Itinerario, 36:01 (April 2012).
• Public history essay: “Preserving Tianjin: Colonial-style Houses and Martial-Arts Fiction,” China Heritage Quarterly, No.21 (March, 2010)
• Book review essay: “East Asia before the West—Five centuries of trade and tribute, (David C. Kang. New York, Columbia University Press. 2010), for East Asia Integration Studies
• Book review essay: “China and the international system, 1840-1949: Power, presence and perceptions in a century of humiliation,” in East Asia, 26:2 (June 2009).