Philip A. Kuhn
Encyclopedia
Philip A. Kuhn is an American academic, sinologist and the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
EALC
In American universities, EALC refers to East Asian Languages and Civilizations , and is the term for the department of East Asian studies, which studies this region of the world....

, Emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

, at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

.

Personal life

Kuhn is the elder son of Ferdinand and Delia Kuhn to whom he dedicated his first book. Ferdinand Kuhn, Jr. had been bureau chief of the London Office of the New York Times and later served at the Washington Post. Delia Kuhn was a writer who served as information director of the Office of Community War Services during World War II.

Kuhn attended Woodrow Wilson High School and then received his A.B. from Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...

. Later he received his M.A. from Georgetown University
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private, Jesuit, research university whose main campus is in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic university in the United States...

, and Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University. He also enlisted in the United States Army, serving from 1955–1958. He married Sally Cheng (程吾)who was John K. Fairbank's secretary, in the 1960s and had one son, Anthony Kuhn, the American journalist and current NPR correspondent. That marriage dissolved in 1980. He also later had a daughter, Deborah W. Kuhn, with his second and now former wife Mary L. Smith.

Academic career

Kuhn taught at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 from 1963 to 1978 where he attained the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of History. While at Chicago, Kuhn published in 1970 Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 as part of the Harvard East Asian monograph series, which led to his being granted tenure and a full professorship. Three of Kuhn's numerous graduate students at the University of Chicago received doctorates but none continued in academics. However, Kuhn's prominent student, Prasenjit Duara
Prasenjit Duara
Prasenjit Duara , originally from Assam, India, an historian of China, is the Raffles Professor of Humanities at the National University of Singapore where he is also Director of Asian Research Institute and Research in Humanities and Social Sciences...

, began his studies with Kuhn at Chicago before following him to Harvard.

In 1978 Kuhn returned to Harvard, where he succeeded his teacher John King Fairbank.

In 1980-1986, Kuhn served as director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies
The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University is a post-graduate research center promoting the study of modern and contemporary China from a social science perspective. -History:...

.

A pioneer of social history in Chinese history, Kuhn also helped re-examine the "impact-response" school of Western scholarship on China. Frederic Wakeman
Frederic Wakeman
Frederic Evans Wakeman, Jr. was a prominent American scholar of East Asian history. He also served as presidents of the American Historical Association and Social Science Research Council in the past.-Biography:...

 in a review in The New York Review of Books described Kuhn as "one of the West's premier China historians." His students hold professorships at universities in Asia, North America, and Europe. Among the most prominent are: Prasenjit Duara
Prasenjit Duara
Prasenjit Duara , originally from Assam, India, an historian of China, is the Raffles Professor of Humanities at the National University of Singapore where he is also Director of Asian Research Institute and Research in Humanities and Social Sciences...

, formerly at University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, now the National University of Singapore
National University of Singapore
The National University of Singapore is Singapore's oldest university. It is the largest university in the country in terms of student enrollment and curriculum offered....

; Timothy Brook, the Principal of St. John's College at University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...

; William C. Kirby
William C. Kirby
William C. Kirby is T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University, where is he concurrently the Director of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and Chairman of the Harvard China Fund. He is the former Dean of the Harvard...

, the former Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences; and Hans van de Ven
Hans van de Ven
Johan 'Hans' van de Ven is an authority on the history of 19th and 20th century China. He holds several positions at the University of Cambridge, where he is Professor of Modern Chinese History, Chairman of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Management Committee member of the East...

, head of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

.

Selected works

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Philip Kuhn, OCLC
OCLC
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. is "a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs"...

/WorldCat
WorldCat
WorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...

encompasses roughly 30+ works in 90+ publications in 7 languages and 2,900+ library holdings. Kuhn published numerous articles and five books, as well as chapters in Cambridge History of China.
  • Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 (1970)
  • 中华帝国晚期的叛乱及其敌人: 1796-1864年的军事化与社会結构 (1970)
  • Introduction to Chʻing Documents (1986)
  • Soulstealers: The Chinese Sorcery Scare of 1768 (1990)
  • National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China (1990), with Timothy Brook and Min Tu-ki
  • The Homeland: Thinking About the History of Chinese Overseas (1997)
  • Origins of the modern Chinese State (1999)
  • 叫魂 (2000)
  • Chinese Among Others (2000).
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