The Transpacific Origins of Modern China: A Social History of American-Educated Chinese (1850–1950s)

Date(s)： 2025/08/15

Time： 10:00~12:00

Venue： Archives 3rd Conference Hall

Host： Prof. Lien Ling-ling （Research fellow and Deputy Director, IMH, AS）

Speaker：Prof. ARMAND Cécile （Junior Professor, Centre for National Scientific Research (CNRS), Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies, France）

Organizer： IMH數位人文共同研究專題

Abstract,
This research aims to revisit the role of Chinese students educated in the United States (留美) in shaping modern China and its complex relationship with the West. Moving beyond hagiographic narratives centered on exemplary individuals—whether hailed as heroes of modernization or condemned as agents of American imperialism—I adopt a renewed prosopographical approach, enhanced by computational methods, to systematically map the trajectories, networks, and discursive practices of these foreign-educated elites within a transnational and multigenerational framework. Beyond individual biographies, the study offers new insights into the transformation of Chinese meritocracy and the intellectual foundations of Sino-American relations. The presentation will outline the research context, share preliminary findings, and introduce the data-driven methodology employed in this study—positioned at the intersection of history, sociology, and natural language processing.