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Fan, Fa-ti

Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999
East Asia , History of Science, Environmental History, Nation and Empire


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My research centers on the history of science, modern East Asia, nationalism, and imperialism. I am particularly interested in the issues of cultural encounter, knowledge translation, representations of nature, and inter/transnational cultural relations. I have published a book on British scientific encounters in Qing China and am currently working on two projects: one on the intersections of nature, nation, and international politics in Republican China and the other on science and mass politics in Communist China.

At Binghamton , I have taught a range of courses in East Asian history, the history of science, environmental history, and comparative and world history. I am happy to work with both undergraduate and graduate students who wish to study in these areas.

I have served on the editorial boards of Isis, the official journal of the History of Science Society, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, East Asian Science, Technology and Society, and the book series, Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century (Chatto & Pickering Publishers), among others.

Recent or current undergraduate courses:

• Science and Technology in the Modern World
• China in the Twentieth Century
• World Environmental History
• History of Imperialism
• Landscape and the Historical Imagination

Recent or current graduate courses:

• Science, Technology, and the National Imagination
• Nationalisms in East Asia
• Historiography
• Environmental History
• Nature and Empire

Recent Publications

Books:

• British Naturalists in Qing China : Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Harvard University Press, 2004). Chinese translation (Beijing : Remin chubanshe, forthcoming).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

• “National Narrative and the Historiography of Chinese Science,” in 古今論衡 (Disquisitions on the Past and Present), (forthcoming).
• “文化遭遇與科學實作：博物研究與英科學帝國主義在清代中國” (“Scientific Practice in Cultural Encounter: Natural History and British Scientific Imperialism in Qing China”), Ping-yi Chu, ed., 中國史新論：科技與中國社會. (New Perspectives on Chinese History: Science and Technology in Chinese Society) (Taipei: Lianjing, forthcoming).
• “Science in Cultural Borderlands: Methodological Reflections on the Study of Science, European Imperialism, and Cultural Encounter ,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Society: an International Journal 1: 2 (2008): 213-231.
• “How Did the Chinese Become Native?: Science and the Search for National Origins in the May Fourth Era,” in Kai-wing Chow, et. al., eds., Beyond the May Fourth Paradigm: In Search of Chinese Modernity ( Lexington Books, 2008), 183-208.
• “Redrawing the Map: Science in Twentieth-Century China ,” Isis 98 (September 2007), 524-538.
• “Nature and Nation in Chinese Political Thought: the National Essence Circle in Early Twentieth-Century China ,” The Moral Authority of Nature , ed. Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004), 409-37.
• “Science in a Chinese Entrepôt: British Naturalists and Their Chinese Associates in Old Canton .” Osiris 18 (2003): 60-78.
• “Science and Informal Empire: Victorian Naturalists in China ,” British Journal for the History of Science 36 (2003), 1-26.
• “Hybrid Discourse and Textual Practice: Sinology and Natural History in the Nineteenth Century,” History of Science , 38 (2000): 25-56.

Review Essays and Commentaries:

• “East Asian STS: Fox or Hedgehog,” East Asian Science, Technology, and Society 1: 2 (2008): 243-247.
• Featured essay review on Benjamin Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China , 1550-1900 (Harvard University Press, 2005), Isis 97 (2006): 535-538.
• “Author's Reply” for a review symposium on my book, British Naturalists in Qing China , in Metascience 14: 2 (August 2005): 165-69.
• “Science and Medicine, Asia and Europe .” Review essay in Metascience 11 (2002): 177-84.

Recent Grants and Fellowships:

• Directeur d'Etudes Associé, Institut d'Etudes Avancées, Paris, Summer 2008.
• Visiting Scholar, Institute of History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing , September-October, 2007.
• Visiting Scholar, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica , Taiwan , 2007.
• Visiting Scholar, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme and REHSEIS (CNRS and University of Paris VII), Paris , Summer 2005.
• Smithsonian Institution Postdoctoral Fellowship, Spring 2005.
• Mellon Fellowship, The Needham Research Institute, Fall 2003.
• Dean's Research Semester Award, SUNY-Binghamton, Spring 2003.
• Participant, Asian Studies Initiatives Grant, the Freeman Foundation, 2002-2005.
• Individual Development Award, UUP/SUNY, 2001.
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 1999-2000.
• Small Grant, The China and Inner Asia Council, Association for Asian Studies, 1998.
• Dissertation Research Grant, National Science Foundation, 1996-97.
• Grant for Research Abroad, University of Wisconsin-Madison , 1996.
• Dissertation Fellowship, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, 1995-1996.

Editorial and Other Professional Activities:

Editorial:

• Associate Editorial Board, Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 2007-
• Editorial Board, East Asia Science, Technology and Society: an International Journal, 2006-
• Editorial Board, Review, Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center , 2006-
• Editorial Board, book series Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century ,
• Pickering & Chatto Publishers, 2005-
• Advisory Editorial Board, Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society , 2004-2006.
• Editorial Board, Metascience , 2002-4.

Other Professional Service:

• Advisory Board, the Hill Center for World Studies, 2008-
• Executive Board, Fernand Braudel Center , 2006-
• Secretary, International Society for the History of East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine, 2005-2008