Maxwell alumnus moves to Arizona State University
Lei Duan ‘13 MA (Hist)/’17 PhD (Hist) has
accepted a position as a lecturer in the School of Historical, Philosophical,
and Religious Studies at Arizona State University.
Duan is a historian of China and Asia, and his
first book, Arming and Disarming: The
Culture and Politics of Guns in Modern China, is under contract with the
University of Michigan Press. As a scholar, he has studied how guns have been
used by ordinary people to empower themselves and how Chinese governments have
responded to such developments. Moving forward, he intends to continue exploring
the impacts of guns in non-military contexts and the relationship between guns
and state power.
He was previously a postdoctoral scholar and
lecturer at the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies at the University
of Michigan. Duan has also received a number of grants and research fellowships
from institutions including the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the American
Historical Association, Princeton University, and Harvard University. He
received his doctorate from Maxwell for a dissertation titled The Prism of Violence: Private Gun Ownership
in Modern China, 1860-1949.
For more information concerning Duan’s appointment at Arizona State, please see this press release. You can read more about
Duan’s scholarship and interests in this interview.
09/25/19