Rate My Professor Michael Chang

Michael G. Chang is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Art History at George Mason University, where he joined as Assistant Professor in 2001 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007. A specialist in the history of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), his research examines the political, social, cultural, and economic histories of late imperial and early modern China (1500-1800), with emphases on ethnicity, state-formation, court studies, and the political and material cultures through which High Qing rule (1680-1820) was constituted, particularly practices of material exchange and network formation at the Qing court. He holds an A.B. in sociology and East Asian Studies from Princeton University (1992) and a Ph.D. in Chinese history from the University of California, San Diego (2001).

Chang is the author of the monograph A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of Qing Rule, 1680-1785 (Harvard University Asia Center/Harvard University Press, 2007), with Chinese translations published by Jiangsu People's Press in 2019 (two print runs), an expanded edition in 2023, and a reprint in 2025. His peer-reviewed articles have appeared in Late Imperial China, Frontiers of History in China, Qingshi yanjiu, and The National Palace Museum Monthly of Chinese Art, alongside chapters in edited volumes such as Living the Good Life: Consumption in the Qing and Ottoman Empires of the Eighteenth Century (Brill, 2017), Visualizing Modern China: Image, History, and Memory, 1750-Present (Lexington Books, 2014), The Dynastic Centre and the Provinces: Agents and Interactions (Brill, 2014), and Cinema and Urban Culture in Shanghai, 1922-1943 (Stanford University Press, 1999). He serves as Associate Editor for Late Imperial China and contributes book reviews to scholarly journals. His honors include the Public Intellectuals Program Fellowship from the National Committee on US-China Relations (2011-2013), Fenwick Fellowship from George Mason University (2010-2011), and ACLS Library of Congress Fellowship in International Studies (2002-2003). Chang teaches courses including Introduction to Global History, History of East Asia, ancient through contemporary Chinese history, and The Study and Writing of History.