Professor Lean is a scholar of modern Chinese history, history of science, technology and industry, and affect studies.  She received her BA from Stanford (1990) and her MA and PhD (1996, 2001) from the University of California, Los Angeles. Before joining the Columbia faculty in 2002, she taught at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill….

Eugenia Lean has published widely. In her book Public Passions: The Trial of Shi Jianqiao and the Rise of Popular Sympathy in Republican China (University of California Press, 2007), she examines a sensational crime of female passion to document the political role of sentiment in the making of a critical urban public. Her forthcoming book, “Manufacturing China’s Vernacular Industrialism:…

Professor Lean has received the 2013-2014 Faculty Mentoring Award for faculty in Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and she is currently the Director of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. Professor Lean has taught a wide range of topics with a focus on Late Imperial and Modern China. Her recent courses include Gender, Passions…