Xavier Beck L&S Social Sciences
Trees and Cosmology in Late Qing/Early Republican China
My project explores the flow of forestry knowledge between the US and China through the lens of US missionary, Joseph Bailie. I seek to connect this flow with impacts of Western forestry practices on locals. Late Qing/early Republican China was an estuary of knowledge: Chinese tradition met with Western modernity, and scientific modes of thinking squeezed between local superstition and traditional knowledge. Trees were important for the modernizing project of the Republican State in early 20th century China. But how did locals and educators navigate cultural rites and modern, imported environmental concerns surrounding trees? Joseph Bailie traveled to China and did business, started “colonial projects”, and became the head of Nanjing University’s department of Agriculture and Forestry. His diaries detail his experiences in these roles and capture his perceptions of how the natural environment was thought about by local Chinese. As a starting point, I will examine his perceptions of Nanjing locals, map his social network, and contextualize these with Chinese language primary sources. To locals and the elites interacting with them, what was the connection between trees and cosmology?
Message To Sponsor
Sponsor, thank you for your support of my research project. I love the field of history, and I am excited for the opportunity to engage environmental historical scholarship within my specific area of interest, the history of contemporary China. Thanks to your support, I am able to sit down and work with primary sources full time this summer.