Columbia University, PhD 2019

Columbia University, MA 2012

Tsinghua University, BA 2010

Early Modern China; Material Culture; History of Technology

Yijun Wang is Assistant Professor of History. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and her B.A. in History from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China).

Her research interest include material culture, history of technology, and gender in early modern China. Yijun is especially interested in the connections between knowledge, technology, and power. Her current book project, tentatively titled From Tin to Pewter: Craft and Statecraft in Qing China, examines the transmissions of technology and changes in the culture of statecraft in China from 1700 to 1850s. By tracing the itinerary of tin, she explores how imperial expansion and global trade affected knowledge production and transmission, gradually changing the culture of statecraft from Confucian didacticism to technocratic statecraft. Yijun has contributed an article to The Silver Age: Origins and Trade of Chinese Export Silver (Hong Kong Maritime Museum, 2017).

Before joining NYU, Yijun was a pre-doctoral fellow at Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin, Germany). Her research was supported by International Dissertation Research Fellowship from The Social Science Research Council and C. Martin Wilbur Fellowship from Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University.

“Tin and Pewter in the Age of Silver,” in The Silver Age: Origins and Trade of Chinese Export Silver, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Maritime Museum, 2017.