Yong-ha Kim

Tang Center Postdoctoral Research Scholar; Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

Email: yk2727@columbia.edu
Office Hours: Mondays 1:50–3:50 p.m. and by appointment

Educational Background

PhD: Columbia University

Classes Taught

ASCE UN1002 Intro to Major Topics: East Asian Civilization – Making and Experiencing the State in East Asia

Yong-ha is a Tang Center Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, specializing in early Chinese history. His research focuses on the tension between early Chinese empire formation and local diversity. Yong-ha’s dissertation, “Rethinking Unification: Ideology, Standardization, and Local Accommodation in the Qin Empire (221–207 BCE),” critiques the concept of “unification” by examining how it can shroud the violence of conquest and obscure the accommodation of local diversity in the process of early Chinese empire-building. He deploys excavated texts, archaeological materials related to local administration as well as received texts to reconstruct the history of this era. He is also interested in the comparative history of ancient empires and civilizations and is building a database of ancient artifacts held in museums around the world. He is additionally engaged in translating scholarship on ancient civilizations beyond China into Korean.