Dr. Benno Weiner

Biography

Benno Weiner is a historian specializing in Modern China, Tibet, and Inner Asia. His research focuses on the ethnopolitics and the 20th-century state and nation-building in China's ethnocultural frontiers. Weiner’s work addresses the historically significant yet often overlooked dynamics of the Qing Empire’s transformation into an integral part of the Chinese state, as well as the marginalization and exclusion of diverse peoples within that process. He is currently working on a book manuscript titled 'Imperial Borderland Socialist State: Disintegration, Territorialization, Minoritization Ethnic Margins Modern China,' which aims to explore these themes in depth. His previous work, 'Chinese Revolution Tibetan Frontier' (Cornell, 2020), is a major study that utilizes county-level archival material to investigate the practices of the Chinese Communist Party in state-nation-building efforts in 'ethnic minority regions' during the early decades of the People's Republic of China. Weiner's scholarship argues that the CCP's attempts at integrating these regions were characterized by a gradualist approach that, while aimed at fostering organic integration, often resulted in the deployment of state violence and led to significant rebellions in the 1950s. He has also co-edited 'Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History Mao Retold' (Brill, 2020), contributing valuable interdisciplinary insights into how Tibetan history is remembered and reinterpreted.

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