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Dr. HANG Xing
PolyU Scholars Hub

Dr. HANG Xing

Associate Dean (Global Engagement) of Faculty of Humanities and Associate Professor

East Asian world order, maritime East Asia, Eurasian comparative history, Ming-Qing transition, overseas Chinese, Chinese nationalism and identity

Biography

I received my Ph.D. degree in History from the University of California, Berkeley.

My first project, which has yielded a book, an edited volume, and several articles and reviews, has examined the Zheng organization and its unique and profitable role in tying together the seventeenth-century maritime Asian trading lanes while struggling to define its legitimacy in terms of Confucian tenets and the imperial dynastic symbols of the Ming and Qing courts.

My interests are now drawing me to a study of Chinese communities in Southeast Asia from the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries. I want to understand their institutions, collaboration with multiple state and non-state actors, and how these elements intersected with the rise of nationalism in China itself.

Education and Academic Qualifications

  • Ph.D. in History: University of California, Berkeley
  • M.A. in History: University of California, Berkeley
  • B.A. in East Asian Studies: University of Georgia
  • B.B.A. in Finance: University of Georgia

Academic and Professional Experience

  • Visiting Associate Professor, Department of History, Brandeis University (2023 - Present)
  • Associate Professor, Department of History, Brandeis University (2017 - 2023)
  • Assistant Professor, Department of History, Brandeis University (2010 - 2017)

Research Interests

  • East Asian world order
  • maritime East Asia
  • Eurasian comparative history
  • Ming-Qing transition
  • overseas Chinese
  • Chinese nationalism and identity

Research Output

  • Hang, Xing and Tonio Andrade, ed. Sea Rovers, Silver, and Samurai: Maritime East Asia in Global History, 1550-1700. Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 2016.
  • Hang, Xing. Conflict and Commerce in Maritime East Asia: The Zheng Family and the Shaping of the Modern World, c. 1620-1720. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016.
  • Hang, Xing. Encyclopedia of National Anthems. 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011.
  • Hang, Xing 杭行. "Yi shige ding kongjian: Hexian zongdu Mo Cong (Mo Tianci) Hexian shiyong kao 以詩歌定空間: 河仙總督莫琮 (莫天賜) '河仙十詠考' (Situating Space through Verse: A Study of the Ten Verses of Hà Tiên by Mo Cong [Mc Thiên T])." Guojia hanghai 國家航海 (National Maritime Research) 25. (2020): 20-33.
  • Hang, Xing. "The Evolution of Maritime Chinese Historiography in the United States: Toward a Transnational and Interdisciplinary Approach." Journal of Modern Chinese History 14. (2020): 152-171.
  • Hang, Xing 杭行. "Luo Fangbo yu Dongnanya huaren zizhiti de huangjin shidai 羅芳伯與東南亞華人自治體的黃金時代 (Luo Fangbo and the Golden Age of Chinese Autonomy in Southeast Asia)." Xuewen 學文 (Literary Pursuit) 11. (2017): 95-106.
  • Hang, Xing 杭行. "Shiqi shiji Ming-Qing dingge shiqi de Guangdong haidao 十七世紀明清鼎革時期的廣東海盜 (Cantonese Pirates during the Seventeenth-century Ming-Qing Transition)." Haiyang shi yanjiu 海洋史研究 (Studies of Maritime History) 9. (2016): 247-260.
  • Hang, Xing. "Contradictory Contingencies: The Seventeenth-century Zheng Family and Contested Cross-Strait Legacies." American Journal of Chinese Studies 23. (2016): 173-182.
  • Hang, Xing. "The Shoguns Chinese Partners: The Alliance between Tokugawa Japan and the Zheng Family in Seventeenth-century Maritime East Asia." Journal of Asian Studies 75. 1 (2016): 111-136.
  • Hang, Xing 杭行. "Xifang xueshu shiye zhong de Zheng shi jiazu yanjiu 西方學術視野中的鄭氏家族研究 (The State of Research on the Zheng Family in the West)." Guojia hanghai 國家航海 (National Maritime Research) 10 (2015): 38-51.
  • Hang, Xing. "A Question of Hairdos and Fashion." Oriens Extremus 47. (2008): 246-280.
  • Hang, Xing. "Chinese Commercial Cosmopolitanism in the Eighteenth-Century Mekong River Delta: The Case of Mạc Thiên Tứ." Commercial Cosmopolitanism?: Cross-cultural Objects, Spaces, and Institutions in the Early Modern World. Ed. Felicia Gottman. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2021. 56-71.
  • Hang, Xing and Adam Clulow. "Between the Company and Koxinga: Territorial Waters, Trade, and War over Deerskins." A World at Sea: Maritime Practices and Global History. Ed. Lauren Benton and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020. 37-52.
  • Hang, Xing and Adam Clulow. "Restraining Violence on the Seas: The Tokugawa, the Zheng Maritime Network, and the Dutch East India Company." A Global History of Early Modern Violence. Ed. Peter Wilson, Marie Houllemare, and Erica Charters. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2020. 142-160.
  • Hang, Xing. "A Ming General Turned Warlord: Funerary Inscription for General Mao Wenlong (1579-1629) by Mao Qiling (1623-1716)." Chinese Funerary Biographies: An Anthology of Remembered Lives. Ed. Patricia Ebrey, Yao Ping, and Zhang Cong. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. 190-211.
  • Hang, Xing. "Soaring Dragon amid Dynastic Transition: Dates and Legitimacy among the Post-Ming Chinese Diaspora." Ming World. Ed. Kenneth Swope. Abingdon, UK: Rotuledge, 2019. Ebook.
  • Hang, Xing. "Leizhou Pirates and the Making of the Mekong Delta." Beyond the Silk Roads: New Discourses on China's Role in East Asian Maritime History. Ed. Robert Antony and Angela Schottenhammer. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 2017. 115-132.
  • Hang, Xing. "Profits, Power, and Legitimacy: The Zheng Maritime Empire in Seventeenth-Century Maritime East Asia." AHA Pamphlet Series (2017).
  • Hang, Xing. "The Seventeenth-Century Guangdong Pirates and Their Transnational Impact." Early Modern East Asia: War, Commerce, and Cultural Exchange. Ed. Tonio Andrade and Kenneth Swope. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2017. 151-165.
  • Hang, Xing. "The Contradictions of Legacy: Reimagining the Zheng Family in the People’s Republic of China." Late Imperial China 34. 2 (2013): 1-27.
  • Hang, Xing. "Animal Husbandry in China: 1800 – Present." Encyclopedia of Modern China. 2008.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of Global History and New Polycentric Approaches: Europe, Asia and the Americas in a World Network System (New York: Springer, 2018), by Manuel Perez Garcia and Lucio de Sousa (eds.). Asian Review of World History vol. 7 2019: 278-281.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of Imperial Bandits: Outlaws and Rebels in the China-Vietnam Borderlands (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017), by Bradley Camp Davis. American Historical Review vol. 124.2 2019: 640-641.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger: War, Trauma, and Social Dislocation in Southwest China during the Ming-Qing Transition (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018), by Kenneth Swope. Michigan War Studies Review 2019: http://www.miwsr.com/2019-041.aspx.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of The Maritime Defence of China: Ming General Qi Jiguang and Beyond (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2017), by Y.H. Teddy Sim, ed.. Ming Studies vol. 79 2019: 74-77.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of Pigs, Pork, and Ham in Early Modern Chinese Society, by Kuo Chung-hao. Dissertation Reviews 2015.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of War, Trade and Piracy in the China Seas, 1622-1683 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2013), by Cheng Wei-chung. Journal of Chinese Military History vol. 3.2 2014: 198-202.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures, by Matt K. Matsuda. Social History 38.3 vol. 38.3 2013: 391-393.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of East Asia before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), by David C. Kang. Journal of Early Modern History vol. 16 2012: 566-568.
  • Hang, Xing. "Review." Rev. of Timothy Brook, Vermeer’s Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008), H-Net 2009: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=25704.

Esteem Measures

Journal Editorship

  • Senior Editor, Oxford Encyclopedia of Asian Commercial History
  • Editorial Consultant, National Maritime Research

Honors

  • Fulbright (turned down), Fulbright Association (United States, Washington D.C.), 2004
  • Taiwan Center for Chinese Studies Grant, National Central Library (Taiwan, Taipei) - NCL, 2009
  • Michael L. Walzer ‘56 Award for Teaching, Brandeis University (United States, Waltham), 2014
  • Junior Scholar Grant, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (Taiwan, Taipei) - CCKF, 2014-2015
  • ACLS - Henry Luce Foundation Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (United States, New York) - ACLS, 2014-2015
  • ACLS Collaborative Grant, American Council of Learned Societies (United States, New York) - ACLS, 2019-2020

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