Yingyao Wang, Wolfensohn Family Member in the School of Social Science, is a sociologist who studies how political institutions and social networks shape economic development. In this Q&A, Wang discusses her project on Chinese investment in Southeast Asia, the globalization of China studies, and why she is looking forward to winter at IAS.
Yulian Wu, Starr Foundation East Asian Studies Member in the School of Historical Studies (2025–26), likens the Institute to the "Peach Blossom Spring"—a legendary fifth-century refuge from outside turmoil. She describes how, in this peaceful sanctuary for scholars, she can focus completely on studying Chinese nephrite jade.
On February 6, 2019, Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and
Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, gave a
lecture on "War and the Making of a New World Order in Asia, 1937
to the Present."
From the Chinese Revolution of 1911 to the May 19 Movement of
1957, from the Xidan Democracy Wall of 1978 to the Democracy
Movement in 1989, Chinese people have never ceased in their
struggle for democracy. When the Tiananmen Massacre shocked
the...
Benjamin Elman, Gordon Wu
’58 Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University and former
Mellon Visiting Professor (1999-2001) in the School of Historical
Studies at the Institute, delivered a public lecture, “Philologists
as Rogues? The Life...
When Fang Lizhi, one of China’s most distinguished
scientists, began in 1986 to talk to his students about the
“universal rights” of human beings, he knew the risks. In those
days, the use of the term “rights” in China was highly sensitive,
even...
Three years ago, just before it was scheduled to shut down in
preparation for its second phase, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
discovered the Higgs boson. Its discovery was expected, having been
predicted nearly sixty years earlier by Peter Higgs...
Addressing an international audience in 2004, Professor Dong
Guangbi, an erudite historian of science, summarized Chinese
physics development over the previous century, and he argued that
the country from which Chinese physicists and physics...
Women’s rights have come a long way since the beginning of the
twentieth century. Before that, if a European or American woman
were married, her husband owned the wages she might earn and
controlled any property or inheritance she might bring.
Women...
