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Joshua Hill

Joshua Hill, portrait
Associate Professor & Director of the Master of Social Sciences Program
413 Bentley Annex

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Education

  • Ph.D. in History from Harvard University

Research

  • East Asia; Modern Period
  • China
  • Political Ideas and Ideals; U.S.-China Relations

Joshua Hill specializes in the study of modern China. Inspired by his experiences living in Ningbo, Zhejiang and Changsha, Hunan during the height of the “Reform and Opening Up” era, Hill’s research focuses on the introduction, circulation, and transformation of political ideas and attitudes in modern China. His first book, Voting as a Rite: A History of Elections in Modern China, explores how Chinese leaders and thinkers in the 19th and 20th centuries conceptualized the meaning of elections and understood the purpose of voting.

More information, including links to publications and course syllabi, can be found on Hill’s academia.edu profile.

Publications

Voting as a Rite: A History of Elections in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2019).

“Translator’s Foreword,” to English translation of Xu Qiyu, Fragile Rise: Grand Strategy and the Fate of Imperial Germany, 1871-1914 [Cuiruo de jueqi: dazhanlüe yu Deyizhi diguo de mingyun] (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017).

“Xuanmin jiaoyu: liansheng zizhi yundong yu Zhongguo xuanju fa de biange [Voter Education: Provincial Autonomy and the Transformation of Chinese Election Law, 1920-23],” in Minguo shiqi de falü, zhengzhi, yu shehui [Republican Era Law, Politics, and Society], Chinese translation by Zhao Yanjie, edited by Wen-hsin Yeh and Wang Chaoguang (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2016).

“Senkyo undō wa futōda!: 1912-13 nen senkyo e no hihan [Elections Based on Campaigning are Incompatible with the Truth: Rethinking Early Republican Elections],” in Chūgoku gikai hyakunen [A Hundred Years of China’s Parliament], Japanese translation by Ienaga Masaki, edited by Fukamachi Hideo (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 2015).

"Seeking Talent at the Voting Booth: Elections and the Problem of Campaigning in the Late Qing and Early Republic," Twentieth-Century China 38.3 (October 2013), 213-29.

"Voter Education: Provincial Autonomy and the Transformation of Chinese Election Law, 1920-23," Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review E-Journal 7 (June 2013), 5-29 and Print Journal 2.2 (November 2013), 307-34.

Teaching

Joshua Hill teaches a variety of courses in Chinese history, East Asian history, and historical methodology. These include:

  • HIST 2460: Rise of Modern Asia [China, Japan, and Korea from 1600 to the Present]
  • HIST 2950: Introductory History Seminar
  • HIST 3111J: Historical Research and Writing
  • HIST 3463/5463: History of China, Antiquity to the Early Modern Era [Stone Age to the Ming Dynasty]
  • HIST 3464/5464: History of China, Early Modern Era to the Present [Qing Dynasty to the Present]
  • HIST 4115: Ancient East Asian Ideas and the Contemporary World
  • HIST 6908: World History Colloquium