Dr. Siyen Fei

Biography

Siyen Fei received her Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2004 and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research primarily focuses on Chinese history, particularly during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries of the Ming dynasty. She examines the actions of a wide range of historical actors, including women and urban residents, to engage with and expand new scholarly paradigms related to 'defiant late Ming energy.' Her work explores how factors such as gender, urbanization, and empire shaped unprecedented transformations in Chinese history, highlighting the subversion of patriarchal systems and the efforts to control female sexuality amidst rapid urbanization. Fei's book, 'Negotiating Urban Space: Nanjing Late Ming Urbanization,' published by Harvard in 2010, argues that urbanism in late imperial China was deeply intertwined with the vision of a dynastic empire. Her findings contribute significantly to the field of Chinese urban history, challenging scholars to reassess the implications of urbanization and to understand the distinct forms of urbanism that emerged in imperial China compared to Western models.

Research Interests

Courses