Jan KIELY
Professor/Director
PhD, History, University of California, Berkeley
Ever since first arriving in China and attending a high school in Chengdu in 1982, I have been fascinated with learning about Chinese culture, society and history. Much of that study has been in classrooms, libraries and archives; but I gained just as much from living in Chinese communities, mostly cities over the years, including Wuhan, Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hong Kong. Combining experiential learning with discussion-oriented, text-based methods in a cross-cultural, multilingual, interdisciplinary setting has been at the core of the visions I have sought to pursue as Co-Director of the Hopkins-Nanjing Center and today at CUHK. It is also integral to my teaching and research. As a historian, I have taken most interest in exploring the intersections of justice, social order, suasion, morality, religion, violence and power in modern China. In recent years, I have focused mostly on rural areas, employing the fieldwork-methods of historical anthropology to investigate northern Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan at the grassroots. At the same time, as a member of the editorial team of Twentieth Century China, a supervisor of PhD and MPhil candidates, and teacher of MA and undergraduate students, I enjoy expanding my horizons beyond my research and learning from new teachers wherever I encounter them.
Research Interests
- 20th century Chinese history
- legal and penal history
- history of thought reform and internal security systems
- Buddhism and other religions in history
- local social histories of war
Representative Publications
Books and Edited Volumes
| 2019 | Kiely, Jan and Thomas David DuBois. Fieldwork in Modern Chinese History: A Research Guide. London and New York: Routledge, 2019. |
| 2016 | Kiely, Jan and J. Brooks Jessup. Recovering Buddhism in Modern China. Sheng Yen Series in Chinese Buddhist Studies. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. |
| 2015 | Kiely, Jan, Goossaert, Vincent, and Lagerwey, John. Modern Chinese Religion. II, 1850-2015 (2 vols). Leiden: Brill, 2015. |
| 2014 | Kiely, Jan. The Compelling Ideal: Thought Reform and the Prison in China, 1901-1956. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. |
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
| 2021 | Kiely, Jan. “Afterword: Conversing with the Good Left about PRC History” positions, asia critique. Vol.29, No.4.
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| 2019 | Kiely, Jan. “Exploring a northern Jiangsu County Intangible Cultural Heritage Archive” In Fieldwork in Modern Chinese History: A Research Guide, edited by Thomas David DuBois and Jan Kiely, London and New York: Routledge, 2019. |
| 2017 | Kiely, Jan. “The Charismatic Monk and the Chanting Masses: Master Yinguang and his Pure Land Revival Movement,” in Making Saints in Modern China, edited by David Ownby, Vincent Goossaert, and Ji Zhe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
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| 2016 | Kiely, Jan. “The Communist Dismantling of Temple and Monastic Buddhism in Suzhou,” in Recovering Buddhism in Modern China, edited by Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016. |
| 2015 | Kiely, Jan. “在菁英弟子與念佛大眾之間——民國時期印光法師淨土運動的社會緊張.” Translated by Chen Tingyou, in 改變中國宗教的五十年︰1898-1948, edited by Paul Katz and Vincent Goossaert. Taipei: Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, 363-397. |
| 2013 | Kiely, Jan. “Dangerous Cities: Judicial Authorities, Criminologists, and the Perception of Crime Zones in 1920s and 1930s China,” in New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities: Emerging Social, Legal, and Governance Orders, edited by Billy K.L. So and Madeleine Zelin. Leiden: Brill, 2013. |
| 2011 | Kiely, Jan. “Shanghai Public Moralist Nie Qijie and Morality Book Publication Projects in Republican China” Twentieth Century China, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2011): 4-22. |
| 2010 | Kiely, Jan. “Spreading the Dharma with the Mechanized Press: New Buddhist Print Cultures in the Modern Chinese Print Revolution, 1865-1949.” in From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, 1800-2008, edited by Christopher Reed and Cynthia Brokaw. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
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| 2004 | Kiely, Jan. “Performances of Resistance: Communist Hunger Strikes and Demonstrations in Nationalist Prisons, 1928–1937.” Twentieth Century China, Vol. 29, No. 2 (April 2004): 63-88. |
| 1995 | Kiely, Jan. “Third Force Periodicals in China, 1928-1949: Introduction and Annotated Bibliography.” Republican China, Vol. 21, No. 1 (November 1995): 129-168. |
Current Research Projects
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2020-23, PI, “The Transformation of Local Religion in Rural Central China under Maoism, 1949-1976,” RGC General Research Fund |
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2019–22, Co-I, “The Last Transitions of Rural China,” China Studies Area Seed Grant, The Chinese University of Hong Kong |
Courses Offered
| CHES1000 | Introduction to Chinese Studies |
| CHES2001 | Modern Chinese History |
| CHES2100/ UGEC2431 | The Cultural Revolution |
| CHES3003 | China under Mao |
| CHES3105 | Cultural History of China |
| CHES4101 | Chinese Legal and Justice Cultures |
| CHES4500 | Capstone Research Paper |
| CHES5157 | China under Mao |
| CHES6002 | Critical Cultural History of China: Modern China |
| CHES6010 | China Seminar I |
| CHES6020 | China Seminar II |