Symposium to Honor Eminent Historian Pamela Crossley

The Department of History will convene scholars from around the world for a symposium on Sept. 21 honoring renowned historian Pamela Crossley, the Charles and Elfriede Collis Professor Emerita of History.

An influential and prolific scholar and public intellectual, Crossley is one of the world's leading historians of modern China, northern Asia, and global history. She specializes in the history of the Qing empire, the last of the imperial dynasties of China. She retired from Dartmouth last year. 

"Pamela remains among the most important historians of China working today, and she was long the most eminent scholar in our department, of a truly world-class caliber," says history department chair and David W. Little Class of 1944 Professor of History Darrin McMahon. 

"Pamela's stature and world renown as a scholar drew acclaimed historians to campus, enriched students' understanding of China and East Asia, and elevated the profile of Dartmouth's history department," says Cecilia Gaposchkin, Charles A. and Elfriede A. Collis Professor in History, who took the lead on planning the program.  

The full-day event, "On Eurasia and the Qing: A Symposium on Ideas and Topics of Interest to Pamela Crossley," will encompass a morning session exploring Eurasia as a historical object, followed by an afternoon session devoted to the Qing. Each session concludes with Crossley leading a discussion in response to the scholarly presentations. All events will take place at the Hayward Lounge in the Hanover Inn.

Noted scholars will deliver talks, including Peter Perdue of Yale University, Terry Burke of UC Santa Cruz, Valerie Hansen of Yale, R. I. Moore of Newcastle University, Erqi Cheng of Syracuse University, Nicola di Cosmo of the Institute for Advanced Study, Jonathan Schlesinger of Indiana University, and Wayne Tan of Hope College. 

A towering authority on the history of both pre-modern and modern China, Crossley is the author of seven books: China's Global Empire: Qing, 1636-1912 (2022), Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World (2019), The Wobbling Pivot: China Since 1800 (2010), What is Global History? (2008), A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (1999), The Manchus (1997), and Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World (1990). Her books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Korean, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, and Polish.

Crossley also co-authored two leading textbooks, The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History, and Global Society: The World Since 1900, and wrote numerous scholarly articles and reviews. Additionally, her written commentary has appeared in such popular publications as the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the London Review of Books, and the Wall Street Journal.

Crossley also authored numerous digital learning materials related to her research, including a desktop reference of the 1943 classic, Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period, and a program that provides memorization tools for the Chinese classical text The Great Learning, which has been downloaded by instructors and students around the world. 

Crossley's numerous awards include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Whiting Foundation, and National Academy of Sciences. She received the Joseph Levenson Prize of the Association of Asian Studies for her book A Translucent Mirror. At Dartmouth, Crossley received the Jerome Goldstein Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Karen E. Wetterhahn Memorial Award for Distinguished Creative or Scholarly Achievement. 

Crossley joined the Dartmouth faculty in 1985. She served as the Pat and John Rosenwald Research Professor from 1997 to 2002 and as the Robert 1932 and Barbara Black Professor of Asian History from 2002 to 2011, when she was appointed the Charles A. and Elfriede A. Collis Professor of History. She was a founding fellow of the Dartmouth Society of Fellows.