Beverly Bossler

Beverly Bossler is a Professor of History and Professor of East Asian Studies at Brown University, serving as Chair of the Department of East Asian Studies since 2020. She received her A.B. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in 1979, M.A. in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981, and Ph.D. in History from UC Berkeley in 1991. Before joining Brown, she spent over two decades at the University of California, Davis, where she progressed from Assistant Professor (1992–1996) to Associate Professor (1996–2005) and full Professor (2005–2020). Earlier positions include Blaustein Instructor at Connecticut College (1988–1990), part-time instructor at UC Berkeley (1991), and Visiting Assistant Professor at Mills College (1991–1992).

Bossler is a historian of China during the Tang, Song, and Yuan dynasties (9th–14th centuries), with research centering on family and kinship relations, gender, and patronage networks in social, political, and intellectual contexts. Her major publications include Powerful Relations: Kinship, Status, and the State in Sung China (960–1279) (Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1998), which analyzes kinship and state interactions; Courtesans, Concubines, and the Cult of Female Fidelity: Gender and Social Change in China, 1000–1400 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2013), exploring shifts in gender ideals; and the edited volume Gender and Chinese History: Transformative Encounters (University of Washington Press, 2015). She has published numerous articles and chapters, such as “Yao Mian’s letters: the epistolary networks of a late Song literatus” (2021) and “Sexuality, Status, and the Female Dancer” (2020). Her scholarship has earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2000), American Council of Learned Societies–Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (1995), and multiple University of California President’s Fellowships in the Humanities (1995–96, 2003–04), along with residencies at Fudan University, Dongwu University, and Osaka University. At Brown, she teaches courses including Tang-Song history, gender relations in imperial China, and East Asian history.

Professional Email: beverly_bossler@brown.edu