James Hevia

FIELD SPECIALTIES

Modern China, British Empire, Imperialism and Colonialism, Global Studies.

BIOGRAPHY

James Hevia’s research has focused on empire and imperialism in eastern and central Asia. Primarily dealing with the British empire in India and Southeast Asia and the Qing empire in China, the specific concerns have been with the causes and justifications for conflict; how empire in Asia became normalized within Europe through markets, exhibitions and various forms of public media; and how the events of the nineteenth century are remembered in contemporary China. Current research centers on how European empires in Asia developed and became dependent upon the production of useful knowledge about populations and geography to maintain themselves. The focus is on British military intelligence in India from 1870 through the interwar period. In order to produce authoritative estimations of threats to British hegemony, military engineers, cartographers, statisticians, and translators created an information system that linked their “reconnaissance” missions to their vast library of contemporary source materials in multiple languages from northeast, southeast and south Asia, the Middle East and east Africa.

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PUBLICATIONS

English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth Century China. Durham: Duke University Press and Hong Kong University Press, 2003.

Cherishing Men from Afar: Qing Guest Ritual and the Macartney Embassy of 1793. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995. Winner 1997 Joseph R. Levenson Book Prize, Association for Asian Studies. Chinese translation: Huairou yuanren Beijing: Social Sciences Publishing House, 2002.

“Rulership and Tibetan Buddhism in Eighteenth Century China: Qing Emperors, Lamas and Audience Rituals,” pp. 279-302. In Joelle Rollo-Koster, ed. Medieval and Early Modern Rituals: Formalized Behavior in the East and West. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2002.

“World Heritage, National Culture and the Restoration of Chengde.” Positions (2001) 9.1: 219-244.

“Looting Beijing, 1860, 1900,” pp. 192-213. In Lydia Liu, ed. Tokens of Exchange. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999.

“The Archive State and the Fear of Pollution: From the Opium Wars to Fu-Manchu.” Cultural Studies (1998) 12.2: 234-264.

“Leaving a Brand on China,” pp. 113-140. In Tani E. Barlow, ed. Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997.

“Imperial Guest Ritual: A Translation and Introductory Comments,” pp. 471-487. In Donald Lopez, ed. Religions of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

“An Imperial Nomad and the Great Game: Thomas Francis Wade in China.” Late Imperial China, (1995) 16.2: 1-22

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