Professor Rowena Xiaoqing He from the Department of History has been awarded the National Humanities Center (NHC) Fellowship and will be in residence at NHC as a Luce East Asia Fellow for the academic year of 2022-23. She is among the 33 leading scholars selected from an international competition of 592 applicants from across the humanities.
As a historian of modern and contemporary China, Professor He has been working on her next book on the roots and development of Chinese student nationalism abroad, focusing on the youths’ evolving life experience in changing contexts at home and abroad. At the NHC, she will continue this longitudinal study, expanding her research cohort to include mainland students as well as local students in Hong Kong. Drawing on concepts of political socialization and identity, as well as Chinese intellectual traditions of Confucian dissent and the “second kind of loyalty”, the project explores the relationship between historical memories and generational differences in the understanding of national loyalty and civic responsibilities. Professor He hopes the project will cultivate dialogues among groups from different backgrounds, and shed light on what young people need to become informed and responsible citizens.
The National Humanities Center (NHC) is the world’s only independent institution exclusively dedicated to fostering advanced research in the humanities. The Center is devoted to advancing significant humanistic study and reflection and to making those insights available both inside and outside the academic world.
