Fellows

The Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368) in Republican Era Chinese Historiography (1900–1949)

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The dissertation traces and critically examines significant shifts in the portrayal of the Mongol Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) in Chinese historiography of the first half of the twentieth century. The interest in the Mongol era can be explained by China’s experience of being part of the Mongol world empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—a possible reference point for China as a global power. It is thus meaningful to understand how, at a significant nation-building moment, Chinese historians evaluated the period in which the Chinese idea of representing »all-under-heaven« (tianxia) was first realized. At the same time, it was an ethnic »Other« who founded the Mongol Yuan, the first non-Chinese dynasty to rule over all of what is today considered China. The research therefore highlights two crucial aspects: first, China’s experience of being part of the second-largest world empire in history, and, second, the question of ethnicity, both of which play an important role to the present.

CV

Sabine Hinrichs studied Sinology at the University of Vienna and spent a year abroad at the University of Nanjing, China, in 2014/15. Between 2017 and 2021 she worked as a tutor, writing mentor, e-multiplier, and university assistant at the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna. Since 2020 she has been working on her dissertation. Besides her research activity she has been teaching courses related to Chinese history and society as well as to academic writing at the University of Vienna, and, starting from October 2022, at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She speaks German, English, and Chinese and is learning Japanese to be able to consider the state of Japanese-language research. Her research interests include history and historiography (esp. 20^th century), history of ideas, global history, philosophy, and politics. From 2020 onwards she has been working at the independent association dasReispapier, which publishes articles related to East Asia.

Publications

in Vorbereitung: gem. mit Sebestyén Hompot und Tanja Kotik (Hgs.), »China and Global History – An Interdisciplinary View on China’s Entangled Histories«, in: Reihe Leiden Series in Comparative Historiography, Axel Schneider, Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik, (Hg.), Leiden 2023; »Hundert Blumen« auf dem Lushan: eine Analyse der Reaktion Mao Zedongs auf die Kritik von Peng Dehuai und Zhang Wentian am »Großen Sprung nach vorn« (1958–61), Wien 2020, online abrufbar: https://utheses.univie.ac.at/detail/54854/; »Re-Writing History: The Winner Takes It All«, in: dasReispapier, online 2021. Online abrufbar: https://dasreispapier.at/2021/re-writing-history-the-winner-takes-it-all/