Office: Phone: Email: Office Hours:

Room 3.10, third floor, Faculty of Arts Building 02476150072 S.Chen.64@warwick.ac.uk  Book a meeting time.

Academic Profile

• From 2019: Associate Professor
• 2022–2023: Leverhulme Research Fellowship
• 2017–2019: Assistant Professor, University of Warwick
• 2011–2017: Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
• 2008–2011: Research Associate, University of Bristol
• 2009: PhD, University of Cambridge

Latest publication

• Essay on Decolonizing Our History -- "What Do We Learn by Viewing the First Sino-Japanese War as a Watershed Moment?" Published in the online archival source database -- Foreign Office, Consulate and Legation Files, China: 1830-1939, by Adam Matthew Digital Limited, 2025.

• Taiwan-China conflict -- Chen, Song-Chuan, "The New Concerned Intellectuals and Civil Society: Democracy Movements in Taiwan”, in Kirrily Freeman and John Munro (eds.), Reading the New Global Order: Textual Transformations of 1989Link opens in a new window (Chapter 6, Bloomsbury, 2022, November)

Research Interests

My research interests lie in modern Chinese global history, with a focus on social-political history from below. Currently, I am researching the Cold War and contemporary history of Taiwan. This project is rooted in my upbringing in Taiwan, particularly on Matsu—one of Taiwan’s Cold War frontier islands.

Drawing from sources in the UK National Archives, institutional archives in Taiwan, private records, and materials collected through fieldwork interviews, I examine Taiwan-China conflicts by integrating both grand narrative and micro perspectives. My goal is to understand their impact on global geopolitics and ordinary people’s everyday life.

Since 2005, I have also worked on the history of the Canton trade, utilizing travel journals, letters, personal diaries, and legal documents to research on the history of China-West relations. My contribution to the field has been to foreground the role of British traders in Canton in shaping British knowledge of China in the early nineteenth century in leading up to the Opium War. I have also brought attention to the Chinese workers involved in the Canton trade, especially the servants to foreign traders, repositioning them at the center of historiographical discussions on China-West interactions.

Through these two ongoing projects, as I shift toward Taiwan-China conflict studies, I seek to explore narratives that navigate both macro and micro perspectives, highlight the agency of ordinary people within broader systems, and trace the evolving transformations of the global political-economic structure.

Funded research project: Canton's Workers of the WorldLink opens in a new window.

Selected Publications

Specialist book:

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2017). Merchants of War and Peace: British Knowledge of China in the Making of the Opium War, Hong Kong University Press

Refereed Journal Articles:

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2018). “The Power of Ancestors: Tombs and Death Practices in Late Qing China’s Foreign Relations, 1845–1914,”Link opens in a new window. Past and Present, 239(1), 113-142.

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2012). “An Information War Waged by Merchants and Missionaries at Canton: The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in China, 1834-1839,” Link opens in a new windowModern Asian Studies, 46:6 (October 2012), 1705-35

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2012). “Shame on You!: Competing Narratives of the Nation in the Laoxikai Incident and the Tianjin anti-French Campaign, 1916-1917,” Twentieth Century China Link opens in a new window37:2 ( May 2012), 121-38

Book Chapters:

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2022), "The New Concerned Intellectuals and Civil Society: Democracy Movements in Taiwan”, in Kirrily Freeman and John Munro (eds.), Reading the New Global Order: Textual Transformations of 1989Link opens in a new window (Chapter 6, Bloomsbury, 2022, November)

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2015). “Strangled by the Chinese and Kept Alive by the British: Two Infamous Executions and the Discourse of Chinese Legal DespotismLink opens in a new window,” in Richard Ward, ed. A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 199-219

• Chen, Song-Chuan (2008). “Chinese Narrator and Western Barbarians: Protestant Missionaries’ Narrative Strategy in their Geographical Writings, 1819-1839,” in Peter Tze Ming Ng and Wu Xiaoxin eds., Studies in Christianity and Chinese Society and Culture (Hong Kong: Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society, 2008), 391-422

Other publications:

• Essay on Decolonizing Our History: "What Do We Learn by Viewing the First Sino-Japanese War as a Watershed Moment?" Published in the online archival source database -- Foreign Office, Consulate and Legation Files, China: 1830-1939, by Adam Matthew Digital Limited, 2025.

• Book review essay: "Opium's Orphans: The 200-Year History of the War on Drugs,Link opens in a new window" The Journal of the Social History, 21:2 (2023).
• A-Level history: “China’s 1911 Republican Revolution: Fulfilling the Inspiration for Democratic Politics”, in Modern History Review, 23:1 (September 2020)
• Book review essay: "Review of Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age", Review in History (review no. 2367, January 2020) DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/2367.
• A-Level history: “The Opium War and British MerchantsLink opens in a new window”, in Modern History Review, 21:4 (April 2019), 24-27
• Book chapter on teaching history with virtual reality: Linda Fang and Song-Chuan Chen “Enhancing the Learning of History through Virtual Reality: The Thirteen Factories Icube Experience” in Väljataga, Terje, Laanpere, Mart (Eds.) Digital Turn in Schools—Research, Policy, Practice International Council for Educational MediaLink opens in a new window. Springer (2018), 37-50.
• Blog article: “A Ghost Army of Ancestors”, Past and Present Blog, 28 April 2018
• Book review essay: "Violence and Order on the Chengdu Plain: the Story of a Secret Brotherhood in Rural China, 1939-1949", Social History 43:4 (October, 2018), 556-558.
• Book review essay: "Southwest China in a Regional and Global Perspective (c.1600-1911): Metals, Transport, Trade and Society", The Economic History Review 71:4 (November 2018), 1431-1432.
• Book review essay: “Luxurious Networks: Salt Merchants, Status, and Statecraft in Eighteenth-Century China.” The Journal of the Historical Association, Volume 103, Issue 354 (January 2018), 159-161.
• Encyclopaedia entry: “Nationalism”, in Michael Dillon (ed.) Encyclopedia of Chinese HistoryLink opens in a new window, (Routledge, 2017).
• Encyclopaedia entry: “Imperial Household Department (Neiwufu)”, in Michael Dillon (ed.) Encyclopedia of Chinese HistoryLink opens in a new window, (Routledge, 2017).
• Book review essay: “From Amorous Histories to Sexual Histories: Tongzhi Writings and the Construction of Masculinities in Late Qing and Modern China”, Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, 9:3 (Sep 2015).
• Book review essay: “China’s Contested Capital: Architecture, Ritual, and Response in Nanjing, and New Narratives of Urban Space in Republican Chinese Cities: Emerging Social, Legal and Governance Orders. The China Journal, No. 73 (January 2015).
• Book review essay: “Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West. (Tonio Andrade, Princeton University Press, 2011.), Itinerario, 36:01 (April 2012).
• Public history essay: “Preserving Tianjin: Colonial-style Houses and Martial-Arts Fiction,” China Heritage Quarterly, No.21 (March, 2010)
• Book review essay: “East Asia before the West—Five centuries of trade and tribute, (David C. Kang. New York, Columbia University Press. 2010), for East Asia Integration Studies
• Book review essay: “China and the international system, 1840-1949: Power, presence and perceptions in a century of humiliation,” in East Asia, 26:2 (June 2009).

Teaching

• Taiwan versus China: A Flashpoint for the Third World War? (HI3U1)

• China and the West, before the Opium WarLink opens in a new window (HI3K9-30,undergraduate final-year option module)

• China Transformed: From Early Modern to Modern Times (HI2J6, undergraduate second-year option module)

• Modern China in Eight Events Link opens in a new window(HI2F4-15, undergraduate second-year option module)

• The History of Modern China (HI294, undergraduate second-year option module)
• Empire & Aftermath (HI173, undergraduate first-year optional module)
• Making of Modern WorldLink opens in a new window (HI153, undergraduate firs-year core module)
• Themes & Approaches to the Historical Study of Consumption (HI994, postgraduate)

• Themes & Approaches in the Historical Study of Religious CulturesLink opens in a new window (HI993, postgraduate)

Postgraduate supervision:

I am open to considering postgraduate supervisions on topics related to the history of modern China and particularly welcome proposals on the history of ordinary people since the seventeenth century and the 'history from below' approach.

Current PhD students

• Qing Chen, 'British Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai'.
• Gongchen YangLink opens in a new window, 'The British Commercial Community in Canton and the Changes
  of Modern China Foreign Trade System, 1700s–1840s'
• Xianxian Dai, 'China's Emotional Objects: Sites and Memorials of the First Opium War'
• Zilu Yang, 'The Working Class in Early Twentieth Century Shanghai Cartoons'
• Jeremy Goh, 'Globalizing from the Periphery: Chinese banking transnationalism in Singapore, Malaya, and China'

Recently Graduated PhD Students

• Bobby TamLink opens in a new window, 'Death and Emotions in Nineteenth-Century British Colonial China
• Leiyun NiLink opens in a new window, 'Food and Drink as Negotiation Sites: Sino-Western Encounters in Canton and Macao, ca.1700–1845'
• Qiuyang ChenLink opens in a new window, 'A Micro-History of Women in Minnan Region, Southeast China in the 20th Century'.

YouTube Video

The First Opium War: Merchants of War and Peace ILink opens in a new window

The First Opium War: Merchants of War and Peace IILink opens in a new window

BBC, Radio 4, In Our Time

The May Fourth Movement, 1919

(May the Fourth be with you!)

@ BBC Sounds:Link opens in a new window

Link opens in a new window

@ YouTube edition:Link opens in a new window

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<Book summary>

Merchants of War and Peace in Youtube videos.

Part I

Part II

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<Learning history>

The Thirteen Factories of Canton, 

a virtual reality project, with Nanyang Technological University (Singapore)

In Video

About the concept

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Teaching Award, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 2017