My research centers on questions of identity and aspirations of modernity, change and self-fulfillment in late 19th C to late 20th C China. The primary way that I have approached this is through the history of science, which I want to frame as a story of desire, identity formation, and values rather than just a story of development. In other words, I am interested in the complex (and often surprising) ways that interactions with "modern science" helped Chinese articulate what they wanted, how they saw themselves, who they wanted to be, and why. This was not just a process of self-exploration or self-actualization, but a constant negotiation between the socio-cultural and nature world, which speaks, not just to the Chinese experience, but to the malleability and resistances of the phenomenal world at a time when people are tempted to feel (or just act) invincible.
