2 HYI alumni win Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award

Wen-Chin Chang (HYI Visiting Scholar, 2007-08) and Sean Hsiang-lin Lei (HYI Visiting Scholar, 2004-05) were both awarded the 2015 ‘Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences’ from Academia Sinica for their recent publications.

Dr. Chang (Research Fellow, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Academia Sinica) received the award for her book Beyond Borders: Stories of Yunnanese Chinese Migrants of Burma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014). Through a personal narrative approach, Dr. Chang’s ethnography “explores the migration history and trans-national trading experiences among this little-studied population, and argues that travel is an essential step leading to opportunities and success for these migrants.” [Read more about the book and author]

Dr. Lei (Associate Research Fellow, Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica) received the award for his publication entitled Neither Donkey nor Horse: Medicine in the Struggle over China’s Modernity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014). The book seeks to “understand how Chinese medicine was transformed from an antithesis of modernity into a potent symbol and vehicle for China’s exploration of its own modernity.” [Read more about the book and author]

The full press release is available on Academia Sinica’s website, along with a description of the award background and guidelines.