Dr. Michael Szonyi

Biography

Michael Szonyi is the Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History at Harvard University. As a social historian specializing in late imperial and modern China, his research focuses on local history in southeast China, the Ming dynasty, and the twenty-first century, utilizing a combination of traditional textual sources and ethnographic-style fieldwork. Szonyi has published several notable works, including 'Art Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China' (Princeton, 2017), 'Companion to Chinese History' (Wiley, 2017), and 'Practicing Kinship' (Stanford, 2002). His book 'Cold War Island: Quemoy Front Line' (Cambridge, 2008) was also released in a Chinese edition by National Taiwan University Press in 2016. Szonyi co-edited 'China Questions: Critical Insights into a Rising Power' (Harvard, 2017) alongside Jennifer Rudolph, celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He completed his Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto and earned his doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, with additional studies at National Taiwan University and Xiamen University. Szonyi has held teaching positions at McGill University and the University of Toronto and joined Harvard in 2005, obtaining tenure in 2002 and serving in multiple leadership roles including Director of Undergraduate Studies and Chair of the Regional Studies – East Asia program.

Research Interests

Experience