Dr. Ling Ma is a social and cultural historian of late imperial and modern China. She received her B.A. and M.A. in history from Peking University and her PhD from the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on reproductive health, clinical practice, everyday life, as well as gender, law, and petty crimes in late nineteenth- and early 20th-century China.
She is completing a book manuscript tentatively titled Mortal Labor: Abortion, Childbirth, and Everyday Crisis in Early Twentieth-Century China. Her book focuses on a diverse set of rank-and-file players of varying nationalities, upbringings, occupations, and genders, who found themselves in the eclectic medical, legal, and cultural environment of late Qing and Republican China. It examines the ways in which these historical actors interacted with each other, negotiated their public/professional and personal lives, and addressed their reproductive needs, aspirations, crises through actions, words, and emotions.
Office Hours, Spring 2023
T/TH 12:30-1:30, and by appointment.
Curriculum Vitae
Education
PhD, University at Buffalo
MA, Peking University
BA, Peking University
Scholarly Activities
Monograph in Preparation
Mortal Labor: Abortion, Childbirth, and Everyday Crisis in Early Twentieth-Century China.
Select Research Publications
- 鈥,鈥 Women鈥檚 History Review, 30, no. 6 (2021), 990-1008.
- 鈥溾 Nursing Clio, August 30, 2018.
Select Book Reviews
- Review of The Suicide of Miss Xi: Democracy and Disenchantment in the Chinese Republic, by Bryna Goodman, Twentieth-Century China, 47, no. 2 (May 2022)
- Review of Reinventing Licentiousness: Pornography and Modern China, by Y. Yvon Wang, Choice, 59, no. 3 (November 2021)
Recent Conference Presentations and Invited Talks
- Panelist for 鈥淪tanding Together: Patterns of Resistance in China and Iran: Celebrating March 8th鈥擨nternational Women鈥檚 Day,鈥 RIT Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program Speaker Series, Rochester Institute of Technology, March 2023.
- 鈥淢ortal Feelings: Fetal and Infantile Deaths as Experience and Memory in Republican China,鈥 paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies 2023 Annual Conference, February, 2023.
- 鈥淢en, Masculinity, and Childbirth in Late Qing and Republican China,鈥 lecture for the Cornell Contemporary China Initiative 鈥淓ngendering China鈥 Lecture Series, Ithaca, New York, February, 2023.
- 鈥淩ediscovering Abortion by Turning Away from It: Researching Abortion in Early Twentieth-Century China,鈥 lecture for the 鈥淕lobalizing Roe鈥 Speaker Series, organized by the Willson Center, the Gender & History Workshop in the History Department, and the Institute for Women鈥檚 Studies at the University of Georgia, November 2022.
Signature Courses
History Matters: Women and Gender in East Asian History (HIST 112)
History of Modern East Asia (HIST 282)
The Art of Saying No: Dissent in Chinese History and Culture (HIST 284)
Interpretations in History: Treaty-Port Shanghai (HIST 301)
Modern China (HIST 476)
Race, Class, and Gender (WGST 310)
History of Unpopular Ideas (INTD 105)
Research Interests
- Modern China
- Women, Gender, and Reproduction
- Law, Medicine, and Crime
- Material Culture and Everyday Life
- Death and Dying
- Masculinity and the History of Emotions
Classes
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HIST 284: Topic: Art of Saying No
A broad study of a particular topic in Latin America/Caribbean/Asia/Africa/Native American (LACAANA) history or global/world histories. Topics could be defined either by time, theme, or space or on a comparative topic, depending on the professor鈥檚 expertise. Previous courses have included histories of global sexology, early India, African nationalism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and science, among others.
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HIST 476: Modern China
This course examines the momentous changes in modern China from 1911 to the present. It covers major historical events such as the 1911 Revolution, the 1949 Communist Revolution, the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and Deng Xiaping鈥檚 reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on first person accounts and specialized studies, this course calls attention to the multiple factors--historical, cultural, social, and economic--that have shaped contemporary China.