Hailian Chen is an engineer-sinologist trained at the universities of Tsinghua and Tübingen. For the winter semester 2023-24, Dr. Chen teaches Chinese history (as Substitute Head of the Department for History of China) at the Faculty of East Asian Studies at the Ruhr University in Bochum. From 2019 to 2023, she has worked at the University of Leipzig as the principal investigator in a research project "Die Wegbereiter von Chinas Aufstieg zur Technologiemacht: Technische Bildungseinrichtungen und ihre Studierende im Zeitalter des Globalen Wandels, 1860-1911" (The Pioneers of China's Rise to technological Power: Technical Educational Institutions and Their Students in the Age of Global Transformation, 1860–1911), which was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). That project examined the role of technical education in the making of modern China and focused on the institutionalization of global mining knowledge and the rise of engineering education in late nineteenth century China. From 2013 to 2019, she has held a replacement university lecturer position at the University of Trier and taught a variety of courses on modern Chinese culture, literature, and society. From 2008 to 2012 she worked as a research fellow in the DFG-Project “Monies, Markets and Finance in China and East Asia, 1600-1900” at the University of Tübingen. Dr. Chen has received grants for an archival research trip sponsored by the Calwer Hermann-Hesse- Stiftung (2011) and a Chiang Ching-kuo Fellowship for Ph. D. Dissertations (2011-2012), and she was a Worldmaking research fellow (2023) at the Joint Center for Advanced Studies: “Worldmaking from a Global Perspective: A Dialogue with China,” at the University of Heidelberg.

Dr. Chen’s research has explored the early modern history of mining practices and the Confucian governance of resources (zinc, coal, and human resources) in late imperial and modern China. She is interested in the history of technology, in particular, the interaction between technology, society, culture, and nature through the actions of human agents. Her research and teaching to date employ interdisciplinary, transnational, and comparative perspectives, which place China in both a local and global context. Her research covers a broad range of history of technology, political economy, environment, society, and material culture in China, including the following subjects:

• History of zinc
• History of mining practices and mining education
• History of energy and coal
• History of technical education and engineering education, knowledge production (textbooks), and industrial transformation in China (from 1750 to 2000) as well as intellectual transfers between China and the West

Chen, Hailian. Zinc for Coin and Brass: Bureaucrats, Merchants, Artisans, and Mining Laborers in Qing China, ca. 1680s–1830s (Leiden: Brill. 788 pages. With forewords by Prof. Hans Ulrich Vogel and Prof. George Bryan Souza. Published in Nov. 2018).

As guest editor (together with Prof. Naofumi Nakamura from the University of Tokyo) for a special journal issue of The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (JRAS) (Forthcoming in 2024)

Chen, Hailian. “Institutionalizing Global Mining Knowledge: The Rise of Engineering Education in Late Qing China, 1870–1895” (to be published in a special journal issue of The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society) (Peer-reviewed; forthcoming in 2024).

Chen, Hailian. “Remaking Hinterland Guizhou: Ding Wenjiang’s (1887–1936) Pioneering Geo-surveys in Southwest China.” (to be published in a conference volume edited by Elisabeth Kaske and Elisabeth Köll: Age of Exploration: How Chinese Scientists and Administrators Discovered China) (Under submission).

Chen, Hailian. “Daxuetang für die Institutionalisierung der Ingenieurwissenschaft: Von der Bowen Akademie zur Beiyang Universität.” In Wissensorte in China. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Vereinigung für Chinastudien 16, edited by Martin Hofmann and Joachim Kurtz (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2023).

Chen, Hailian. “China’s Paths to Modern Technology: From Institutional Innovations to Confucian Scholarly Learning of Arts, 1860–1885.” (Les chemins de la Chine vers la technologie moderne : des innovations institutionnelles à l’apprentissage confucéen des arts, 1860–1885) Artefact, no 18 (2023): 223–256. https://doi.org/10.4000/artefact.13975

Chen, Hailian. “Creating Intellectual Space for West-East and East-East Knowledge Transfer: Global Mining Literacy and the Evolution of Textbooks on Mining in Late Qing China, 1860–1911.” In Accessing Technical Education in Modern Japan, edited by Erich Pauer and Regine Mathias (Renaissance Books & Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2022): 37–69. (https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2dt5m7z.8)

Chen, Hailian. “Zinc for Coin and Brass: A Commodity Chain Analysis Approach to Studying Resources in Early Modern Chinese History.” Ferrum – News from the Iron Library “Unternehmen Rohstoff. Natürliche Ressourcen in der Geschichte (Raw Materials. Natural Resources in History)” 92 (2022): 38–47.

Chen, Hailian. “Technology for Re-engineering the Qing Empire: The Concept of ‘Arts’ and the Emergence of Modern Technical Education in China, 1840–1895.” ICON: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology 26, no. 1 (2021), 10–43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27082027.

Chen, Hailian. “Kontrolle über Natur und Gesellschaft: Bergbaupolitik und –verwaltung in China (ca. 1550–1800).” Agricola-Forschungszentrum Chemnitz, 27. Agricola-Gespräche/ Rundbriefe (24.11.2018): 43–54. https://www.georgius-agricola.de/downloads.html.

Chen, Hailian and George Bryan Souza. “China’s Emerging Demand and Development of a Key Base Metal: Zinc in the Ming and Early Qing, c. 1400–1680s.” Journal of Material Culture 22, 2 (2017): 173–93.

Chen, Hailian. “Fueling the Boom: Coal as the Primary Source of Energy for Processing Zinc in China and Comparison with Europe, ca. 1720–1820.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 57, 1 (2014): 76–111.

Chen, Hailian. “Zinc Transfer from China to Europe via Trade, ca. 1600–1800: A Transnational Perspective.” Technikgeschichte 80, 1 (2013): 71–94.