Event time:
Friday, January 24, 2025 - 11:00am
Location:
Online via Zoom, and 230 Prospect Street, Room 101
Event description:
Yuan Gao, Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Case Western Reserve University, will present the first Agrarian Studies paper of the Spring 2025 semester. For these seminars, participants send papers in advance that are the focus of an organized discussion by the faculty and graduate students associated with the colloquium. Meetings are held in a hybrid format, both on Zoom and in-person at 230 Prospect Street, Room 101, on Fridays 11am–1pm Eastern. Please contact agrarian.studies@yale.edu to receive the meeting information and the password to download the paper from the Agrarian Studies website.
Yuan Gao is an Assistant Professor of Chinese History at Case Western Reserve University. She received her Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University in 2024. Prior to that, she received M.A. in Eurasian studies at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Yuan is an environmental historian of northwestern China and Central Eurasia. Her research focuses on the intersection of empires, economic extraction, and environment, with a particular emphasis on the Eurasian borderlands of Qing China and imperial Russia. She is currently working on a book manuscript, tentatively entitled Tigers and Locusts: Environmental Changes in Late Qing Xinjiang. Through the extinction of Caspian tigers and recurring locust plagues, this project tells stories of environmental changes in Xinjiang under Qing rule in the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. Moreover, by situating this arid region globally, Yuan argues that the environment of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang played a pivotal role in shaping the global discourse on arid land, desiccation, and the intricate relationship between humans and nature. Yuan’s research is supported by fellowships and grants from Georgetown University, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, UNESCO Silk Roads Youth Program, the Cosmos Club, and OYCF-Chow Fellowships.
Admission:
Free but register in advance