Wanhan Xing

I work on Middle-Period Chinese history (800-1400) with a special focus on the dynamic interplays between text and space as well as on material culture. My master's thesis, titled "Gardens and the City: Literati Identity Building in the Mid-Northern Song," leverages gardens in Luoyang as a novel analytical lens to study literati identity building in the eleventh century. While working on this project, I developed a deep interest in investigating the entanglement between human and nature, and I want to extend the scope of my research to incorporate perspectives such as environmental history and new materialism(s) to challenge human-centered narrative.

I am also interested in transregional comparatives studies (China, Japan, and Europe) especially in terms of investigating how various objects, for instance paper and reliquaries, circulate and form intricate networks, as well as their embodied dimensions, that is to say how human bodies and their interactions with these objects are part and parcel of history-making. During my Ph.D. studies, I hope to join the conversation of global history and situate my own work at the intersection between history and art history.