Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley
Professor
Office: AL 532
Email: [email protected]
Curriculum vitae
Education
Ph.D. in History, Indiana University, Bloomington (2002)
M.A. in History, Indiana University, Bloomington (1997)
B.A. in History, Wesleyan University (1992)
Kathryn Edgerton-Tarpley is Professor of Late Imperial and Modern Chinese History. Her research focuses on cultural and political responses to major disasters in nineteenth- and twentieth-century China. Her teaching interests include world history, famine studies, war and memory in modern East Asian history, gender and sexuality, comparative responses to trauma and disaster, and modern Sino–Japanese and Sino–US relations.
She is the author of Tears from Iron: Cultural Responses to Famine in Nineteenth-Century China (University of California Press, 2008; Chinese translation, 2011). She has also published a series of articles on the Yellow River Flood of 1938–47 and the related Henan Famine of 1942–43, two major disasters deeply intertwined with World War II in China and the Chinese Civil War. Her most recent publications examine famine foods and efforts to treat women’s gynecological ailments during the Mao-era famine of 1958–62. Her current NEH-supported book project traces changes and continuities in Chinese responses to calamity through case studies of three major famines that struck North China’s densely populated Henan Province under governments (late-Qing, Nationalist, and Maoist) with markedly different ideological foundations. She is also beginning a new project on the state-ordered dismantling of many of China’s historic city walls during World War II.
Professor Edgerton-Tarpley travels regularly to China to conduct research and present her work at conferences on disaster studies. Chinese-language versions of several of her publications have appeared in China. She teaches survey courses in Asian and world history; upper-division courses including Ancient and Imperial China, China in Revolution, and Women, Sex, and Power in Chinese History; and graduate seminars on major historiographical debates in the fields of modern Chinese history and modern World history. She particularly enjoys helping students at all levels develop an interest in Asia, working with current and future public-school teachers, and exploring historical themes through East Asian film and literature.
Books
Tears from Iron: Cultural Responses to Famine in Nineteenth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008).
《铁泪图: 19 世纪中国对于饥馑的文化反应》 [Chinese language version of Tears from Iron], translated by Cao Xi 曹曦. (Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, 2011).
Journal Articles
“From Bodhisattva Earth to Man-Made Meat Essence: Famine Foods in Late-Qing, Nationalist, and Maoist China,” Environment and History, 26 (Spring 2020): 105-130.
“饥饿符号学：从新文化史看灾害史研究” [The Semiotics of Starvation: New Cultural History Approaches to Disaster Studies], translated by Zhang Xia.《灾害与历史》 [Disasters and History] 1 (October 2018): 1-18.
“A River Runs Through It: The Yellow River and the Chinese Civil War, 1946-1947.” Social Science History, 41.2 (Summer 2017): 141-173.
“Between War and Water: Farmer, City, and State in China’s Yellow River Flood of 1938-1947.” Agricultural History, 90.1 (Winter 2016): 94-116.
“From ‘Nourish the People’ to ‘Sacrifice for the Nation’: Changing Responses to Disaster in Late Imperial and Modern China.” The Journal of Asian Studies, 73.2 (May 2014): 447-469.
“Tough Choices: Grappling with Famine in Qing China, the British Empire, and Beyond.” Journal of World History, 24.1 (March 2013): 135-176.
“‘Governance with Government:’ Non-State Responses to the North China Famine of 1876-1879.” Berliner China-Hefte/Chinese History and Society, 35 (2009): 33-47.
“The ‘Feminization of Famine,’ The Feminization of Nationalism: Famine and Social Activism in Treaty-port Shanghai, 1876-1879.” Social History, 30.4 (November 2005): 421-443.
“Family and Gender in Famine: Cultural Responses to Disaster in North China, 1876-1879.”
Journal of Women’s History, 16.4 (2004): 119-147.
Book Chapters
“Agency and Coercion: Fighting ‘Women’s Illnesses’ with Chinese and Western Medicine during the Great Leap Famine of 1958-1962,” pp. 192-214. In Negotiating In/visibility: Women, Science, Engineering and Medicine in the Twentieth Century, edited by Amelia Bonea and Irina Nastasă-Matei. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2025.
“Famine in Imperial and Modern China,” an invited, peer-reviewed essay for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Online Publication Date, March 2017. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.133
“Saving the Nation, Starving the People? The Henan Famine of 1942-43.” In 1943: China at the Crossroads, edited by Joseph Esherick and Matthew Combs. Ithaca, New York: Cornell East Asia Series, 2015, pp. 323-364.
Chinese translation (edited) of refereed book chapter, “救国或饿死人民？ 1942-1943 年河南大饥荒” [Saving the Nation, Starving the People? The Henan Famine of 1942-1943] in《1943 中国在十字路口》[1943: China at the Crossroads], edited by Joseph Esherick and Matthew Combs, translated by Chen Xiao. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe [Social Sciences Academic Press, 2015], pp. 285-313.
“晚清中国的灾荒与意识形态: 1876-1879 年‘丁戊奇荒’期间关于灾荒成因和防荒问题的对立性阐释” [Famine and Ideology in Late-Qing China: Contending Interpretations of Famine Causation and Prevention during the “Incredible Famine” of 1876-1879]. In《天有凶年：清代灾荒与中国社会》[Unexpected Famine Years: Qing Dynasty Disasters and Chinese Society], edited by Li Wenhai and Xia Mingfang. Beijing: Sanlian Publishing House, 2007, pp. 509-537.