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