C. Patterson Giersch

Pat Giersch is an assistant professor of history at Wellesley College. A member of the faculty since 2000, Professor Giersch teaches courses on early modern and modern China, Sino-American relations, inner Asia and China's frontiers, and global history. His research examines the expansion and consolidation of the Qing Empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a focus on cultural, political, and economic changes among indigenes and immigrants in Southwest China. His work has been supported by numerous grants, including an NEH fellowship. Professor Giersch is the author of several journal articles and the recent book, Asian Borderlands: The Transformation of Qing China's Yunnan Frontier (Harvard, 2006).

Professor Giersch received a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College in 1989. He studied and worked in China before attending graduate school at Yale University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1998. While conducting his research he has lived in Taibei, Beijing, Hong Kong, and Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Profile last updated: 5/06

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