Visiting Researchers and Affiliated Fellows Programs

The Boston University Center for the Study of Asia (BUCSA) invites applications from highly motivated scholars, artists, literary figures, journalists, and teachers from around the world with well-conceived projects to conduct self-supported scholarly, artistic or literary activity under the guidance of or in collaboration with BU Asian Studies faculty. Visiting Researchers receive a formal university appointment for a fixed period of time, as approved by the Dean. Affiliated Fellows, normally residents of the New England area, receive an informal affiliation with BUCSA as approved by the BUCSA Board. Both Visiting Researchers and Affiliated Fellows can pursue their work and exchange ideas with our faculty, other visiting scholars, and with BU’s significant body of Asian Studies-related graduate and undergraduate students. Details about the Visiting Researcher and Affiliated Fellows programs and the application process can be found here BUCSA-Visiting-Researcher-and-Affiliated-Fellow-Program-details 2023b

 If you are interested in working with the BU Center for the Study of Asia, or if you would like to recommend someone who would benefit from collaboration with the BUCSA community and access to BUCSA’s resources, we invite you to contact our Assistant Director, Maria Elena Rivera-Beckstrom at <meprb@bu.edu>.

Current affiliates for the 2023-2024 year include:

Visiting Researchers:

Grant F. RHODE

BA Tufts University
MA University of New Brunswick, Canada
Diploma University of Oxford, UK
Certificate University of Cambridge, UK
MALD The Fletcher School, Tufts University
PhD The Fletcher School, Tufts University
CV
gfrhode@bu.edu
Tel. (617) 212-8111
Grant Rhode teaches and conducts research at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University and Faculty Affiliate of the China Maritime Studies Institute of the U.S. Naval War College. He has been a Visiting Scholar in Taiwan at both National Chengchi University and National Taiwan University. He trained in Chinese studies in the UK before his doctoral studies in Asian Diplomatic History and International Relations.

Dr. Rhode’s current research focuses on China’s role in historical and contemporary Eurasian maritime affairs. On the historical front, he is completing a book on Eurasian Maritime History for Global Strategists: Great Power Clashes along the Maritime Silk Road. On the contemporary front, he directs Boston University’s program series Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Recent publications include “By Land and By Sea: China’s Belt and Road in Europe” (2019), “China, Global History, and the Sea” (2020), “Mongol Invasions of Northeast Asia: Korea and Japan” (2020), “China’s Emergence as a Power in the Mediterranean: Port Diplomacy and Active Engagement” (2021), “Tasting Gall: Chiang Kai-Shek and China’s War with Japan” (2021), and “Shi Lang’s Amphibious Conquest of Taiwan in 1683” (2021).

Recent teaching includes the following courses:

Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University
The Sea in International Relations
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Region

U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island
Eurasian Maritime History for Global Strategists
Taiwan: Transformation and Geopolitics
Asian Maritime History and Current Disputes
Strategy and War

Affiliated Fellows:

Ronald Kent RICHARDSON (e-mail rrichard@bu.edu), PhD is associate professor of European and Japanese history at Boston University where he is also the director of the Global Theater Project in collaboration with the School of Theater. He has taught at the University of Rhode Island, Howard University in Washington, D.C., Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and Harvard University. He rebuilt and directed the African American Studies Program at BU from January 2000 to September 2008. Doctor Richardson has been an Associate in Research at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard since 2003 and has received a Japan Fulbright teaching award.   Among his publications are Moral Imperium, a study of English anti-slavery thought, and Churchill’s Ghost’s (in manuscript). He has written five plays, two novels and has directed several stage productions. Professor Richardson teaches courses on Japanese history, the comparative study of Black and Asian writers and racial thought. His current projects include a book in preparation on Winston Churchill and the modern racial self and an interpretive study of Japan during the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods.

Recent Visiting Researchers affiliated with the Center for the Study of Asia included:

Han Sang KIM (e-mail: hansangkim.vs@gmail.com) received his PhD in sociology at Seoul National University South Korea.  He is currently working on his first book, entitled Visualizing Mobilities: Cinema, Transportation, and the Trans-National Imaginary in 20th-Century Korea, which will document a cultural history of modern and contemporary Korea with a theoretical framework concatenating visuality and mobility.

LUO Qun 罗群 (e-mail: sooophy@126.com) is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Zhejiang University of Media and Communications. She earned her MA and PhD in Philosophy at Zhejiang University, completing her doctoral thesis in 2011 on “Julius Aleni and his Diary of Oral Admonitions <口铎日抄>” in Zhejiang University’s Research Institute of Ancient Works. Her research has focused on (1) the work of the Italian missionary Julius Aleni (1582-1649) in Fujian, which mainly centered on Li Jiubiao’s Diary of Oral Admonitions《口铎日抄》; (2) Research on scholars and believers of middle and lower social classes and their works, including the ideas and works of Li Jiugong, Li Jiubiao and Zhang Geng; and (3) Research on Julius Aleni’s thoughts, specifically a review of his Chinese works, such as his Recorded Scholarly Discussions from Fuzhou 《Sanshan lunxueji 三山论学记》 and 《Xingxue cushu 性学粗述》 which take humanity as their main theme, as well as doctrinal and religious art works. While at BU, Prof. Luo will research the spread of Catholicism among scholars and believers of middle and lower social classes in Fujian during the late Ming dynasty.

Sardia SAEED (e-mail: sadias@bu.edu) received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2010. Dr. Saeed was appointed as a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at Boston University in 2014-2015. While at BUCSA, her research explored how notions about minority rights have been imagined and institutionalized beyond the framework of the nation-state in the twentieth century. It examined formal institutions and political formations that both transcend and are located within the nation-state.

Masumi Kagaya SASAKI (e-mail: kagayakimasumi@gmail.com, kmasumi@akita-pu.ac.jp) is Associate Professor, Research and Education Center for Comprehensive Science, Akita Prefectural University, Japan. Her research interests focus on Japanese literature, English and American literature, comparative literature, and the history of US-Japan cultural exchange, particularly the American experiences of Japanese students in the Meiji era. She earned her M.A. degree from the University of Tsukuba, and is now tackling her doctoral thesis in which she is undertaking a comparative study on the reportage of poverty in Japan from the late 19th century to the early 20th century and success stories of emigrants abroad, which became a fad immediately after this period, basing her research on novels, newspapers, and historical data.

Her latest work is “Aru Tobei Kugakusei” (“A Self-supporting Japanese Student in the U.S.: Findings from Rikko Sekai”) (Kindai Bungaku Shiryo Kenkyu, No. 2), in which she traces the lives after graduation of Japanese international students who worked their way through Rutgers University.

While at BUCSA, Prof. Sasaki held a research grant from Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to research the lives of Japanese international students in Boston, including their interaction with local people and their lives in college, by especially focusing on Japanese international students working their way through college and the organizations operated by them, such as theJapanese Benefit Society of Boston.

Chunxia SHAO 邵春霞 (e-mail: shao2016@bu.edu, 05182@tongji.edu.cn) is based at the School of Politics and International Relations at Tongji University 同济大学政治与国际关系学院 in Shanghai, China. She is the author of Chuanmei bianqianzhong de gong gong lingyu 传媒变迁中的公共领域 (The Limited Public Sphere in Changing Mass Media) (China Society Press, 2014) and has published in Chinese journals nearly twenty articles related to the Chinese public sphere and governance. Her academic interests focus on changing state-society relations in China, which she explores through an examination of the public sphere and the governance mode in China. In her studies, she has been trying to answer such questions as, How does the cyber discussion shape the Chinese public sphere? and How does the authoritarian system under the CCP work? While at BU, her research focused on how the campaigning tradition of the CCP molds the present governance in China.

Zijie SHAO 邵梓捷 (e-mail: shaozijie65@pku.edu.cn), a Ph.D candidate at the School of Government, Peking University. Her research focus in the study of political communication involved a comparative study of how Chinese and American official propaganda guide public opinion.

Feibiao XU 徐飞彪 (e-mail: xufeibiao@cicir.ac.cn), Associate Professor and the Director of the Division for International Trade and Investment Studies, the Institute of World Economic Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR) 中国现代国际关系研究院世界经济研究所贸易与投资室 in Beijing, China. Professor Xu, a political economist, is currently researching “the Changing International Financial Order and Its Impacts on Sino-U.S. Relations.”

ZHANG Lanxing 张兰星 (e-mail: lanxingzhang@sina.cn) is Associate Professor of History at Sichuan Normal University in Chengdu. He earned his MA and PhD in History from the Department of History, Sichuan University, and undertook postdoctorate research at Fudan University that focused on the relationship between Japan and Western countries during the Tokugawa period (1603-1868). While in residence at BU, he is focusing on research on maritime trade between China and Southeast Asia, especially trade involving herbs, spices, and other materials related to traditional medicine.