Postdoctoral Fellow

Yen Vu

Yen Vu

Lecturer, Mellon Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities

Email: bv2296@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: Cornell University

Research Interests

Intellectual history, Vietnamese and Vietnamese francophone literature, colonial history, language

Yen Vu is a first generation scholar in French and Vietnamese Studies. She earned her PhD in 2019 from Cornell University, and subsequently taught French and Francophone studies at Hamilton College for two years. She specializes in Vietnamese francophone literature and intellectual history in 20th century Vietnam, with her present manuscript project focusing on how Vietnamese intellectuals have worked with and through language to establish their own ideas of freedom in colonial and postcolonial Vietnam.  Her scholarship has appeared in the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies and Diaspora.

Anna Sehnalova

Anna Sehnalova

Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Modern Tibetan Studies

Email: as6492@columbia.edu

Educational Background

PhD: Charles University, Prague
MPhil: University of Oxford
Mgr. (M.A.): Charles University, Prague

Research Interests

Anthropology/Ethnography, History

Tibetan and Himalayan Societies and Religions, Indigenous Cosmologies, Local Histories, Oral History, Tibetan Medicine and Science, Ritual

Anna Sehnalova explores cultural reflections of the natural world and environment through ethnography and textual and historical studies. Her first larger research project focused on Tibetan tantric healing practices in the medico-ritual nexus with an emphasis on botany, medicine, and other indigenous fields of knowledge and scientific disciplines. Her current main research seeks to better understand Tibetan non-Buddhist mountain and ancestor cosmologies closely tied to local histories and migrations, socio-political systems, and hereditary ruling elites, and specifically to notions of identity, territoriality and governance, ethnogenesis, descend, and genealogy. Anna studies their impacts on Tibetan Buddhism and interactions with Buddhist institutional powers, and their transformations and roles within modern contexts. Aiming to understand the background of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies as an independent academic discipline through recording the life stories of those involved, she has co-founded the ‘Oral History of Tibetan Studies’ project of Oxford University (https://oralhistory.iats.info/).

Qingzhu Wang

Qingzhu Wang

Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Tang Center for Early China

Email: qw2375@columbia.edu

Office: TBD

Office Hours: By appointment

Educational Background

BA/MA: Shandong University

PhD: Yale University

Classes Taught

Archaeometallurgy in Ancient China (2021 Fall)

Introduction to East Asian Civilization: China (2022 Spring)

Research Interests

Origin and development of complex societies and early states in China; Archaeometallurgy and bronze production; Political economy of ancient states; Cultural contacts and social changes; Iconography and inscriptions on bronze objects; Archaeomagnetic dating (focus on China); The history of antiquarianism and archaeology in China

Biography

As an archaeologist and archaeometallurgist, Qingzhu Wang studies bronze objects and metallurgical remains to investigate the process and nature of bronze production in early states. Funded by the National Science Foundation (2018), his dissertation research focuses on the role of bronze production, distribution, and consumption in the Shang (ca. 1600-1050 BCE) period of Bronze Age China, examining state organization and political economy from a regional perspective. In his dissertation, he used a multi-proxy research approach, including analyses of bronze objects for their styles, inscriptions, casting methods, chemical compositions, and lead isotope ratios. He also conducted scientific analyses of metallurgical remains related to bronze production. His research revealed significant changes in bronze production and circulation during different periods of the Shang state, providing a new understanding of the operation and development of the Shang state. He has participated in excavations and research projects in China, the Andes, and Africa. His postdoctoral project at Columbia will place bronze consumption in the larger framework of colonialism to investigate how Shang elites in the capitals attempted to integrate Shandong into the state order.