William A. Joseph

William A. Joseph is Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College. He teaches courses in Chinese politics, the political economy of East Asia, revolutionary movements, and the Vietnam War. He has served as co-director of East Asian Studies, co-director of Chinese Studies, director for the Elisabeth Luce Moore '24 Wellesley-Yenching Program, the Wellesley-in-Washington Summer Internship Program, International Relations, and chair of the political science department.

In addition to his work at Wellesley, Joseph is an Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University. He has served as a book review editor for the Journal of Asian Studies and a contributing editor for Current History magazine.

Professor Joseph has been involved in the academic study of East Asia for nearly 40 years. He holds a B.A. degree from Cornell University in Asian Studies and Government and earned both an M.A. in East Asian Studies and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was also the Assistant Director of the Center for East Asian Studies. He is the author of The Critique of Ultra-Leftism in China, l958–l981 (Stanford University Press, l984). He is a co-editor of New Perspectives on the Cultural Revolution (Harvard Council on East Asian Studies, 1991), The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2001), and Introduction to Comparative Politics at the Crossroads (Houghton Mifflin, 3rd edition, 2004). Joseph has been the editor of the Asia Society's annual China Briefing volumes from 1991–1996 and has also contributed articles and reviews to scholarly journals.

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Profile last updated: 5/05

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Last Modified: December 13, 2006