Contact Information
2090A Foreign Language Building
707 South Mathews
Urbana, Illinois 61801
Research Interests
cultures of law in China, legal history, nationality law, gender studies, gender and law, medical history of ethics and law, borderland studies, ethnic groups in China, U.S.-East Asia relationship, Sino-Japanese relationship
Research Description
I primarily study the historical roots of contemporary problems, and particularly problems concerning the making, shifting, and lifting of boundaries and borders in Chinese society. I pay special attention to peoples and places on the margins, intending to enrich our understanding of China as a historical concept and to bridge the gap between Asia-based and Europe/U.S.-based studies on common problems about social boundaries and legal borders. I have endeavored to cross the historical marks that conventionally distinguish “modern” from “pre-modern” or "contemporary" from "historical," and to traverse the existing national borders that define China.
Education
PhD, History Department, University of California Santa Barbara
LLM, College of Law, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Grants
Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program grant, UIUC 2022-2023
IPRH Research Cluster 2019-2020
2012-2015 Andrew Mellon New Directions Fellowship
INTERSECT collaborative grant 2012-2014: Cultures of Law in Global Contexts
INTERSECT-Cultures of Law 2014-2016
CEAPS Title VI Award, 2018-2020. Yellow Peril Redux: America’s Cultural Responses to the Economic Rise of Japan and China (co-PI: Mathew Brown).
2012-2013 ACLS Fellowship, Research in Humanities in China Program (funded by NEH)
Focal Point Initiative Grant, 2009-2010 Law and Society in China, UIUC Graduate College (Collaboration with Law faculty)
2006-2007 UIUC Research Board Grant
Awards and Honors
2012-2016 Conrad Humanities Scholar Award
2013-2014 CAS Resident Associate
2011-2012 IPRH Fellowship, UIUC
2009-2010 Beckman Fellowship, Center for Advanced Studies, UIUC
2003-2004 An-Wang postdoctoral fellowship, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University
Courses Taught
Additional Campus Affiliations
Head, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Associate Professor, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Associate Professor, History
Associate Professor, Center for the Study of Global Gender Equity
Associate Professor, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies
Work in Progress
Book Projects:
"Bloodline and Borderline: Jus Sanguinis, Chinese Nationality Law, and State Succession, 1909-1997"
“State’s Rules and Doctors’ Roles: Chinese Female Obstetricians in the Early PRC”
Collaborative Research Projects:
“Cross-cultural Understanding of Power Harassment: Title VII and Title IX, Awareness and Actions”, with co-PIs: Colleen Murphy (Law and WGGP) and Nicole Allen (Psychology)
“Yellow Peril Redux: American Cultural Responses to Economic Rise of Japan and China,”
with Mathew Brown (UIS, Business Management)
Course Development Projects:
Yellow Peril Redux: From Coolies to Cars, Trade Wars, and Coronavirus
Gender and Women in East Asia
Academic Service
- Reviewer: Journal of Asian Studies, American Historical Review, 20th-Century China, Asian Studies Review, China Review International, Chinese Historical Review, The Journal of Historical Sociology, Hanxue yanjiu (Chinese Studies, Taiwan), Social Science History; Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindai shi yanjiu suo jikan (Journal of Modern History Institute, Academia Sinica),Sociological Methodology, Weatherhead East Asian Institute of Columbia University, Cambridge University Press, Hong Kong University Press, and more.
- Projector Leader and Proposal Writer, Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program grant, UIUC (2022-23); HRI Research Cluster on “ Cross-Cultural Re-understandin
- Grant Proposal Work Group member and Steering Committee member of Interseminars Initiative, Andrew Mellon Foundation Grant, Chair of Area Studies Center Subcommittee, HRI, UIUC, 2018-2019, 2019-2021
- Director of Graduate Program,EALC, UIUC, 2020-2021
- Director of Undergraduate Program, EALC, UIUC, 2017-2020
- Executive Committee, School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, UIUC, 2018-2020
- Elected Advisory Committee member, East Asian Languages and Cultures, UIUC, 2016-2020
- Faculty senator, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Senate, UIUC, FA2015-SP 2017
- Project Leader of INTERSECT-Cultures of Law in Global Contexts project, 2012-2016, UIUC
- CAS Initiative Steering Committee, UIUC, 2013-2014
- Co-PI of a cross-disciplinary project on “Rising Sun and Red Corner: A Cultural and Economic Understanding of the ‘Asian Invasion’ (1940s-2010s)”, 2011-2012, Academy on Capitalism and Limited Government Foundation
- Advisory Board, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, UIUC,2009-2011
Highlighted Publications
Shao, D. (2022). Red Star over Medicine: Redefining State-Doctor-Patient Relationship in the Early CPC History (1920s-1950s). East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 14. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18752160.2021.1971369?journalCode=teas20
Shao, D. (2017). Manchuria in Modern East Asia, 1600s–1949. In D. Ludden (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.141
Shao, D. (2011). Remote Homeland, Recovered Borderland: Manchus, Manchoukuo, and Manchuria, 1907–1985. (The World of East Asia). University of Hawai'i Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824860226
Shao, D. (2009). Chinese by Definition: Nationality Law, Jus Sanguinis, and State Succession, 1909-1980. Twentieth-Century China, 35(1), 4-28. https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.0.0019
Shao, D. (2009). Borders and Borderlands. In A. Iriye, & P.-Y. Saunier (Eds.), The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History (pp. 99a-102b). Palgrave Macmillan.
Recent Publications
Judge, J., Kurtz, J., Sela, O., Shao, D., & Shapiro, H. (2024). The Sinosphere and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Joshua Fogel. De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111383514
Dan, S. (2023). Red Star over Medicine: Redefining Doctor-Patient Relationship in Early CPC History (1930s–1960s). East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 17(2), 170-200. https://doi.org/10.1080/18752160.2021.1971369
Shao, D. (2022). Red Star over Medicine: Redefining State-Doctor-Patient Relationship in the Early CPC History (1920s-1950s). East Asian Science, Technology and Society, 14. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/18752160.2021.1971369?journalCode=teas20
Shao, D. (2017). Manchuria in Modern East Asia, 1600s–1949. In D. Ludden (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.141
Shao, D. (2014). Review: Pär Kristoffer Cassel's Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan. American Historical Review, 119(2), 488-489. https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/119.2.488