Postdoctoral Fellow

Alexander Kaplan-Reyes

Alexander Kaplan-Reyes

Early Career Fellow

Email: ak3627@columbia.edu

Educational Background
BA: Occidental College (’11)
MA: University of California, Los Angeles (’14)
Ph.D: Columbia University (’22)
 
Research Interests
 Male-male Intimacy, Gender and Sexuality, The History of the Samurai, Historical Narrative, History as Popular Culture
 
Alexander Kaplan-Reyes is a historian of premodern Japan, specializing in the Warring States period (1467-1603) and the transition to the Edo period (1603-1868). His current research explores the intimate relations between male warriors during the Warring States and the ways in which such ties strengthened alliances and retainer bands, contributing to the process of unification that constitutes the era’s central narrative. He is also interested more broadly in the history of the samurai and the construction of warrior identity. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2022. His research has received support from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Shincho Foundation for the Promotion of Literature, and the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture.

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.

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.