top of page
Associate Professor
Programme Director, China Studies

Li, Ji

0_2N6A0001_edited.jpg
China Studies
PhD University of Michigan, USA
MA, BA Peking University, China

Profile

Born and raised in Chongqing, a major city located on the upper Yangtse River in China, I attended college in Beijing and obtained my B.A and M.A degrees in history from Peking University. My initial interest in French history and Sino-European communication subsequently led me to undertake several transnational research projects on French missionaries in China. I completed my training as a historian in the USA, earning a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, and in France, where I was a Chateaubriand Scholar at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. My transnational and cross-cultural training has equipped me with the ability to study, understand, and empathize with often-overlooked individuals in historical archives. This experience is reflected in my three books, God’s Little Daughters: Catholic Women in Nineteenth-Century Manchuria (Seattle: Washington 2015), Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) and China from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (ed., Brill 2021), and At the Frontier of God’s Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China (New York: Oxford 2023). 


My research fields center on the social and religious history of late imperial and modern China, with a particular focus on the history of Christianity, religion and local society, and women and gender. My research often takes a microhistorical approach, delving into the experiences of individuals and communities at the margins of society and culture. In my most recent monograph, I utilize this methodology to examine the lives of forgotten modern missionaries and ordinary Chinese individuals within the context of Chinese local society during the tumultuous twentieth century.


Through an analysis of these cross-cultural exchanges in the everyday lives of individuals, my work illustrates the inherent entanglement of the global and the local, and how these interactions shape the lived experiences of individuals and communities.  

Tel. No.

39172046

Email

Office

506, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus

HKU Scholars Hub

ORCID

Region and Language

English, Chinese (Putonghua), French, China, Northeast Asia, France

Research Area

Social and religious history, Late imperial and modern China, History of Christianity, Religion and local society, Women and gender, Cross-cultural studies of China and the West

Key Publications

Where there are Asians there are Rice Cookers.jpg

Book

At the Frontier of God’s Empire: A Missionary Odyssey in Modern China

Ji Li

New York: Oxford University Press

2023

Hardcover: 9780197656051 | E-Book: 9780197656075

Where there are Asians there are Rice Cookers.jpg

Edited Volume

Missions Étrangères de Paris (MEP) and China from the Seventeenth Century to the Present

Ji Li, ed.

Brill

2021

Hardcover: 978-90-04-47210-5 | E-Book: 978-90-04-49869-3

Where there are Asians there are Rice Cookers.jpg

Book

God’s Little Daughters: Catholic Women in Nineteenth-Century Manchuria

Ji Li

University of Washington Press

2017

Hardcover: 9780295741758 | E-Book: 9780295806037

Where there are Asians there are Rice Cookers.jpg

Article

Mobility and Identity: Christianity and the Making of Local Society in Northeast China, 1840 – 1945

The Catholic Historical Review 107, no. 2 (Spring 2021): 253–76.

Ji Li

The Catholic University of America Press

2021

Print ISSN: 0008-8080 | E-ISSN: 1534-0708

Where there are Asians there are Rice Cookers.jpg

Article

Catholic Communities and Local Governance in Northeast China

The China Review, Special Issue: Chinese Religions on the Edge: Shifting Religion-State Dynamics, ed. Nanlai Cao 18, no. 4 (November 2018): 107–30.

Ji Li

The China Review

2018

Print: 1680-2012 | E-ISSN: 1015-6607

Projects

Title
Type
Amount
Making Religion, Making Local Society: The Social History of a Catholic Village in Northeast China
GRF
627340
Negotiating Spirituality and Urban Space in Jiangbeicheng: Local History, Religion and the Making of Modern China
ECS
523056
Christianity on the Move: Routes and Religious Mobility in Late Imperial and Modern China from 1750s to 1950s
GRF
604938
Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road (BRINFAITH)
Others
6252078

Courses offered in

2025-2026

bottom of page