Eugenia Lean

Professor of Chinese History, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs

Office: 915 IAB
Office Hours: R 2:00 pm- 4:00 pm
Phone: (212) 854-1742
Email: eyl2006@columbia.edu

Educational Background

BA: Stanford University (’90)
MA: University of California, Los Angeles (’96)
PhD: University of California, Los Angeles (’01)

Classes Taught

GU4882 History of Modern China

Research Interests

Modern Chinese History, History of Science and Technology, Gender Studies, History of Affect

Eugenia Lean, professor (EALAC), received her BA from Stanford University (1990), and her MA (1996) and PhD (2001) from UCLA. She is interested in a broad range of topics in late imperial and modern Chinese history with a particular focus on the history of science and industry, mass media, consumer culture, affect studies and gender, as well as law and urban society. She is also interested in issues of historiography and critical theory in the study of East Asia. She is the author of Public Passions: the Trial of Shi Jianqiao and the Rise of Popular Sympathy in Republican China (UC Press, 2007) http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10541.html, which was awarded the 2007 John K. Fairbank prize for the best book in modern East Asian history, given by the American Historical Association.

Professor Lean’s second book, Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900-1940 (Columbia University Press, 2020) https://cup.columbia.edu/book/vernacular-industrialism-in-china/9780231193481, examines the manufacturing, commercial and cultural activities of maverick industrialist Chen Diexian (1879-1940). It illustrates how lettered men of early twentieth century China engaged in “vernacular industrialism,” the pursuit of industry and science outside of conventional venues that drew on the process of experimentation with both local and global practices of manufacturing and was marked by heterogeneous, often ad hoc forms of knowledge and material work. See the New Books Network for a recent podcast. A third book project focuses on China’s involvement in shaping twentieth-century global regimes of intellectual property rights from trademark infringement to patenting science. It investigates the local vibrant cultures of copying and authenticating in China, as well as enquires into how China emerged as the “quintessential copycat” in the modern world.

She was featured in “Top Young Historians,” History News Network (fall 2008) and received the 2013-2014 Faculty Mentoring Award for faculty in Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She received an Institute for Advanced Studies fellowship and a National Endowment of the Humanities fellowship for 2017-2018.

Please see her website for more information.

Selected Publications:

Vernacular Industrialism in China: Local Innovation and Translated Technologies in the Making of a Cosmetics Empire, 1900-1940 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2020), https://cup.columbia.edu/book/vernacular-industrialism-in-china/9780231193481.

Public Passions: The Trial of Shi Jianqiao and the Rise of Popular Sympathy in Republican China (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10541.html.

施剑翘复仇案-民国时期公众同情的兴起与影响 [Shi Jianqiao fuchou an – Minguo shiqi gongzhong tongqing de xingqi yu yingxiang] (Jiangsu Renmin Press, 2011), http://book.douban.com/subject/6397072/.

Rieppel, Lukas, Eugenia Lean and Deringer, William. 2018. “Introduction to Science and Capitalism: Entangled Histories.” In “Science and Capitalism: Entangled Histories.” Eds. Lukas Rieppel, William Deringer, and Eugenia Lean. Osiris. 33, no. 1 (2018): 1-24. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-cfjh-f461

“The Making of a Chinese Copycat: Trademarks and Recipes in Early Twentieth-Century Global Science and Capitalism.” In “Science and Capitalism: Entangled Histories.” Eds. Lukas Rieppel, William Deringer, and Eugenia Lean. Osiris. 33, no. 1 (2018): 271-293. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-cwbv-5k05

“Recipes for Men: Manufacturing Make-up and the Politics of Production in 1910s China.” In Osiris Special issue on “Masculinities in Science/Sciences of Masculinity.” Eds. Erika Milam and Robert Nye. 30.1 (Fall 2015): 134-157. https://doi.org/10.7916/d8-hg3a-t323

“The Butterfly Mark: Chen Diexian, His Brand, and Cultural Entrepreneurism in Republican China.” In The Business of Culture: Cultural Entrepreneurs in China and Southeast Asia, 1900-65. (University of British Columbia Press, 2015).

“Proofreading Science: Editing and Experimentation in Manuals by a 1930s’ Industrialist.” In Science and Technology in Republican China (Brill, 2014).