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Unveiling the Transpacific Origins of Modern China

On June 6, 2025, the Center for Urban Culture at Shanghai Normal University hosted Dr. Cécile Armand, for a presentation titled “The Transpacific Origins of Modern China: A Social History of American-Educated Chinese (1850–1950).” The event took place at the Wenhui Building on the Xuhui campus.

Dr. Armand, a Junior professor at French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) — and distinguished ENP-China Team member — delivered a rich and interdisciplinary presentation exploring the trajectories of Chinese students educated in the United States from the mid-nineteenth century to the early Cold War. Her research reframes these individuals not merely as intellectual elites but as pivotal agents in shaping China’s social, cultural, and political transformation through transpacific mobility.

Drawing from an extensive prosopographical database, Armand traced the evolution of American-educated Chinese across a century marked by imperial decline, revolution, and national reconstruction. Her work challenges conventional narratives by placing these individuals within intersecting transnational networks of knowledge production, professional careers, and institutional affiliations.

Key themes included:
• The role of missionary and philanthropic foundations in shaping early educational pathways
• Shifting academic disciplines over time, from engineering and medicine to social sciences and law
• Gendered patterns in overseas education and return migration
• Institutional gateways such as the Boxer Indemnity Scholarships
• The diverse and often bifurcated careers of these returnees after 1949, ranging from national leadership to exile or political persecution

The event was chaired by Professor Jiang Jie of the Center for Urban Culture, who facilitated an engaging roundtable with students and faculty. The session was notable for its open and collaborative atmosphere, with lively exchanges on methodology, the challenges of tracking historical mobility, and the implications of intellectual migration for understanding elite formation in modern China.

Visual Highlights

The seminar unfolded in the elegant setting of the School of Humanities conference room, where participants gathered around a long table with laptops, books, and notepads. Dr. Armand—wearing a white “ENP-China” t-shirt—delivered her talk using a tablet, with several visual aids and bilingual discussion points. The attendees, a mix of graduate students and scholars, responded enthusiastically, reflecting the growing interest in global histories of education and elite circulation.

Armand’s work not only contributes to a revisionist historiography of modern China but also resonates with current debates on academic mobility, diasporic networks, and knowledge transfer. As China continues to position itself within global academic circuits, the historical precedents examined in this talk provide a vital context for rethinking the role of education in transnational identity formation.

This event was part of Shanghai Normal University’s ongoing efforts to sustain dialogue between Chinese and international scholars and to promote interdisciplinary approaches to urban and cultural history.

Christian Henriot
Christian Henriot

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Christian Henriot (June 6, 2025). Unveiling the Transpacific Origins of Modern China. Elites, Networks and Power in modern China. Retrieved June 18, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/142lu


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1 Response

  1. 18/08/2025

    […] presentation built and expanded upon earlier talks delivered at Shanghai Normal University (June 6), Jiaotong University (August 4), and the Lyon Institute of East Asian Studies (March […]