We recently checked in with Fairbank Center faculty affiliates and Center Associates to learn what they’ve been working on. From new books and translations to international lectures, media interviews, and major academic honors, their scholarship and public engagement continue to span disciplines and continents. Below are their latest updates.
William P. Alford, Jerome A. and Joan L. Cohen Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Professor Alford was awarded the Jerome A. Cohen Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association of American Law Schools Section on East Asian Law and Society on January 8, 2026 in recognition of his achievement and dedication to the field of East Asian law as a distinguished scholar, teacher, administrator, mentor, and advocate for the marginalized.
Rowan Flad, Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University
Professor Flad co-authored two journal articles in 2025: with Bridget Alex and Jenny Ji, “Regional Biases in U.S. Media Coverage of Archaeology Research,” Science Advances, Vol. 11, No. 27 (2025); and with Chengrui Zhang, Katherine Brunson, Andrew Womack, and Zhou Jing, “Pyrotechnology and Gender in a Medieval China Borderland: A Song Dynasty Tile Kiln at Qijiaping,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (2025), pp. 571–588.
Susan Greenhalgh, John King and Wilma Cannon Fairbank Research Professor of Chinese Society, Emerita, Harvard University
Professor Greenhalgh participated in numerous public-facing events in 2025, including podcast and radio appearances with the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (“China’s Response to its Population Decline,” Sept. 8), This Is Hell! (“Corporate Science Wants You to Buy the World a Coke,” Sept. 2), and Sci-Tech Asia’s TechnoViews (#19).
She delivered talks at Middlebury College (“Soda Science: Making the World Safe for Coca-Cola,” Oct. 8), the University of Massachusetts Amherst (“Soda Science for Historians,” Sept. 8), and Harvard University (“How Should We Tell the History of Corporate Science?,” Oct. 2).
Professor Greenhalgh was also interviewed by Down to Earth (“Almost Every Middle-Income Country is Being Targeted,” Aug. 1) and The Wire China (“Susan Greenhalgh on Coca-Cola, China and Obesity,” Jan. 2025).
Janet Gyatso, Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies, Harvard University
Professor Gyatso’s essay, “Clouds Over Mountains, Streams Under Ice: The Messenger Reaches Tibet,” co-authored with Lama Jabb, was published in Mapping the World: Courier Poetry from South Asia and Beyond (Routledge Press, 2026), edited by Yigal Bronner and David Shulman.
In December 2025, she delivered an address at the conference “Cultural and Historical Significance of His Holiness Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso — An Exploration” in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh, India.
Wilt Idema, Professor Emeritus of Chinese Literature, Harvard University
Professor Idema’s new book, A Historical Taxonomy of Talking Birds in Chinese Literature (Harvard University Asia Center, 2025), was published last March.
He translated and wrote an introduction for The Kitchen God and His Wives: A Modern Chinese Folk Epic (Cornell University Press, 2025), which was also published last March.
He co-authored with Stephen H. West Winners and Losers in a World of Wind and Dust: Students and Courtesans in Chinese Vernacular Literature of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries (Brill, 2025), which was published in September.
Thomas Kelly, Assistant Professor of Pre-Modern Chinese Literature, Harvard University
Professor Kelly had three publications in 2025: “The Unfinished Manuscript: A Poetics of Incompletion in the Ming-Qing Transition,” T’oung Pao: International Journal of Chinese Studies, Vol. 111, Nos. 5–6 (2025), pp. 690–748; “Book Burning and Early Modern Chinese Literature: The Case of Dong Tuo (1620–1686),” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews, Vol. 47 (2025); and “Affective Impressions in Biographies of Seal Carvers,” in Affect and Materiality: Emotion in Chinese Art, eds. Wu Hung and Jeehee Hong (Center for the Art of East Asia and Art Media Resources, 2025).
Waiyee Li, Professor of Chinese Literature, Harvard University
The Confucius Chronicles: A Guide to the Texts That Made the Legend (Columbia University Press, 2026), translated and edited by Professor Li, was published in January.
Dwight H. Perkins, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, Harvard University
Professor Perkins was featured in a China Forex “High-End Dialogue” interview, “Structural Challenges to Sustained Economic Growth in China,” China Forex (2025, Vol. 4).
Meg Rithmire, James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Professor Rithmire published an essay in Current History, “China’s Perilously Imbalanced Economic Success,” Vol. 124, No. 863 (September 2025), pp. 203–208.
Robert S. Ross, Professor of Political Science, Boston College; Center Associate, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Professor Ross delivered presentations and briefings internationally on U.S.-China relations, Asian security, and U.S. foreign policy, including at:
- East Asian Institute, Seoul, South Korea — “Trump, U.S.-China Relations, and the Korean Peninsula”
- Xiangshan Forum, Beijing — Panel on U.S.-China Relations
- Institute for Defense Studies, Ministry of Defense, Norway — “Trump in Asia: Containment or Retrenchment?”
- Nepal Institute for Policy Research, Kathmandu — Dialogue on U.S.-China Relations and Asian Security
- U.S. Department of State-sponsored International Visitor Leadership Program (World Boston, ASEAN delegation)
- Kansai Keizai Doyukai (Kansai Association of Corporate Executives)
He also participated in multiple media interviews, including with Asahi Shimbun, ARD (German public broadcasting), Asharq News (Saudi Arabia), and ThinkChina (Singapore).
Michael A. Szonyi, Frank Wen-Hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History, Harvard University
Professor Szonyi was a guest on the December 11, 2025, episode of the China Field Notes — With Scott Kennedy podcast, “History from Below: Harvard’s Michael Szonyi on Fieldwork, History, and U.S.-China Relations.”
Xiaofei Tian, Ford Foundation Professor of East Asian Studies, Harvard University
Professor Tian delivered the Medieval Academy of America’s annual keynote lecture at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK (July 2025). Her lecture was titled: “The Margins of Knowing: A Place for the Extraordinary in an Ordinary World.”
Ellen Widmer, Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies, Emerita, Wellesley College; Center Associate, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Professor Widmer published two articles in Nan Nü: Men, Women and Gender in China: “Mingyuan shiwei, Zhang Hao, and Wang Duanshu’s Editorial Hand,” Vol. 27, No. 1 (July 11, 2025), pp. 27–76; and “On Second Thought: ‘Mingyuan shiwei, Zhang Hao, and Wang Duanshu’s Editorial Hand,’” Vol. 27, No. 2 (November 26, 2025), pp. 200–210.