Two faculty members of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies were awarded a Harvard College Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching: Karen Thornber, Harry Tuchman Levin Professor in Literature and Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilization; and Yuhua Wang, Ford Foundation Professor of Modern Chinese Studies. The awards were announced on May 6 by Hopi Hoekstra, Edgerley Family Dean of Faculty and Arts and Sciences.
“We are thrilled that two of our faculty members have been recognized with these prestigious professorships for their dedication to teaching and mentoring our undergraduates,” exclaimed Mark Wu, Director of the Fairbank Center. “Both professors engage and challenge our students through their classes and scholarship on leading issues concerning China and contemporary East Asia.”
Professor Thornber, a cultural historian, also serves as Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning and as the President of Phi Beta Kappa Iota of Massachusetts. She recently published Gender Justice and Contemporary Asian Literature: A Casebook.
The Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilization, Melissa McCormick, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Japanese Art and Culture and also herself a Harvard College Professorship, remarked: “Karen Thornber is a model scholar of East Asia, one who has long approached regional studies with a vision that transcends national borders, bringing an expansive perspective to bear on her teaching as well as her research. Her courses not only span geographic borders, but bridge the humanities and social science, offering students across the university the benefit of her erudition, enthusiasm, and tireless mentorship. Her upcoming innovative new course in the medical humanities is a perfect example of her commitment to connecting East Asian Studies with some of today’s most pressing global issues. We in the Department of East Asian Studies are proud to call her a colleague and delighted that her contributions to teaching have been recognized with this prestigious award.”
Professor Wang, a political scientist, teaches the undergraduate course, “Government and Politics of China” as well as classes on comparative politics. He is also the author of The Rise and Fall of Imperial China, which was awarded the 2023 Lubbert Best Book Award in Comparative Politics by the American Political Science Association.
His senior colleague, Elizabeth J. Perry, Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government and emeritus director of the Fairbank Center and Harvard-Yenching Institute, proclaimed: “The Fairbank Center is incredibly fortunate to have Yuhua as our colleague. He is the complete package! As his Harvard College Professorship attests, Yuhua is a gifted and inspiring teacher and mentor. He’s also a brilliant and broad-gauged scholar who has written two path-breaking books on Chinese politics — one on the rule of law in the contemporary period and the other on state development in the imperial period. And to top it all off, he is the ideal colleague — engaged, thoughtful, responsible, and always willing to do more than his fair share!
Read the full Harvard Gazette article here. Congratulations to Professors Thornber and Wang!