Mark Swislocki
New York University Abu Dhabi
Biography
Mark Swislocki is Associate Professor of History at NYU Abu Dhabi. His current research focuses on the environmental history of southwest China. His is the author of Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shanghai (Stanford, 2009) and articles on food history, environmental history, and animal studies.
「 Scaling Zomia from the Shore: Anglo-American Learning about Yunnan from Canton in the Mid-Nineteenth Century 」
How did Anglo-Americans acquire knowledge about China’s interior without direct access? This paper takes a new look at The Chinese Repository, which published news and knowledge about China from 1832-1851, focusing on its production of knowledge about Yunnan. The province appears to have been of marginal interest until, prior to the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Burmese War, intense interest grew in its historical status as the location of Sino-Burmese wars in Ming and Qing times, as evident in historical Chinese records. The paper compares the degree to which Anglo-American knowledge differed from that produced by other Europeans, including French Jesuits, and shaped understanding of the province for the rest of the 19th century.
