EALL Assistant Professor Luke Habberstad has been selected for the Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship. Luke will be conducting research and writing in China for his next book, tentatively entitled “Water Control and Political Culture in Early Imperial China.” The book will examine both the role of water control in establishing the early Chinese empires and the representation of hydraulic engineering in early texts. Luke’s research will explore how hydraulic engineering emerged as a field of knowledge after imperial unification, emphasizing in particular the connections between hydraulic engineering, the consequences of environmental manipulation, and shifting notions of imperial space. While in China, he will be in residence at Minzu University in Beijing, collaborating with historical geographers as well as archaeologists who have recently completed comprehensive studies of water control projects from the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods.

Shu Yang, EALL PhD 2016 and currently Assistant Professor at Western Michigan University, has won the Young Scholar Award of the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS), in recognition of her paper “Wrestling with Tradition: Early Chinese Suffragettes and the Modern Remodeling of the Shrew Trope.” The award was announced at the biennial EACS conference, held August 29-September 1, 2018, in Glasgow, Scotland. For more information about the conference and the prize, see here. Congratulations to Shu Yang!