RESEARCH

Ji Li’s research focuses on the social and religious history of late imperial and modern China, particularly the history of Christianity, religion and local society, women and gender, and cross-cultural studies. She has published books and articles in both English and Chinese. Her current research focuses on the intricate relationship between religion, local society, women and gender, and the making of modern China in a global context. She currently works on two new research projects, one examining the life circle of an urban area in southwest China from a religious perspective and the other examining the intricate relationship between gender, religion, and mass literacy in Chinese society from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. She is also editing a manuscript collection of a French missionary, Alfred Caubrière (1876 – 1948), and working on two Chinese books. She has received four Research Grant Council grants, including three General Research Fund (GRF) grants and one Early Career Scheme Research Fund (ECS) grant. She was one of the Co-PIs of the Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) project on “Infrastructures of Faith”.

Research Interests

• Late Imperial China
• Modern China
• Christianity in China
• Religion and Local Society
• Women and Gender
• Cross-Cultural Studies
• Global History and Microhistory

Research Projects

• “Gender, Religion, and Mass Literacy in Modern China, 1870s-1940s.” PI, General Research Fund (GRF), 2025 – 2028.
• “Christianity on the Move: Routes and Religious Mobility in Late Imperial and Modern China from 1750s to 1950s.” PI, General Research Fund (GRF), 2021 – 2023.
• “Infrastructures of Faith: Religious Mobilities on the Belt and Road (BRINFAITH).” Co-PI, Collaborative Research Fund (CRF), 2019 – 2022.
• “Negotiating Spiritual and Urban Space in Jiangbeicheng: Local History, Religion and the Making of Modern China.” PI, Early Career Scheme Research Fund (ECS), 2018 – 2020.
• “Making Religion, Making Local Society: A Social History of a Catholic Village in Northeast China.” PI, General Research Fund (GRF), 2014 – 2017.
• “Rethinking Indigenization and Christianity in China: Alfred Marie Caubrière (1876 – 1948) and His Private Writings in Early Twentieth-century Manchuria.” PI, Sin Wai-Kin Junior Fellowship, 2017 – 2019.

Selected Publications

Books

Book Manuscripts in Progress

City on the North Bank: Religion and the Making of Urban China.

Speaking Chinese in Manchuria: Manuscript Collection by Alfred Caubrière (1876–1948) (co-edited with Ruijuan Zhao).

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

2024. “Missionary Writings and Grassroots Christianity in Early 20th Century Manchuria.” In How Missionaries Lived their Option for China: 17th Century until Today, edited by Pieter Ackerman and Hugo Vanheeswijck, 285–300. Leuven: Verbiest Institute for Sino-Mongol Studies, KU Leuven.

2023. “Manuscripts from Father Caubrière: Discovering Untold Stories from Missionary Archives.” In Xin Shixue [New Historiography, Special Issue on Microhistory], Vol. 16: 225–243, edited by Wang Di. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.

2021. “Mobility and Identity: Christianity and the Making of Local Society in Northeast China, 1840–1945.” The Catholic Historical Review 107, no. 2: 253–276.

2021. “Grassroots Penman for the Empire Expansion: Church Records and Missionary Manuscripts.” In Yiwulü jiangzuo shilu [Collection of Yiwulü Series], vol. 1, edited by Wu Shixu, 225–256. Shenyang: Liaohai Chubanshe.

2019. “Filing and Research of Paris Foreign Mission’s Archives of the Vicariate Apostolic of Manchuria.” Hong Kong Journal of Catholic Studies, no. 10: 131–151.

2019. “‘Little Flowers’: Chinese Christian Women in Northeast China.” In The Contribution of Chinese Women to the Church, edited by Piotr Adamek and Sonja Huang Mei Tin, 103–118. Siegburg: Franz Schmitt Verlag.

2018. “Catholic Communities and Local Governance in Northeast China.” The China Review 18, no. 4: 107–129.

2018. “Resistance, Accommodation and Indigenization: Religion and Political Transformation in Modern China.” Twentieth-Century China 43, no. 2: 188–195.

2016. “‘Sacred Heart’ and the Appropriation of Catholic Faith in Nineteenth-Century China.” In Reshaping the Boundaries: The Christian Intersection of China and the West in the Modern Era, edited by Song Gang, 76–90. Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong Press.
Ji, Li. 2014. “Faith, Gender and Literacy: The Du Letters and Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Northeast China.” Journal of Tsinghua University 2014.02: 7–16.

2014. “Perspectives, Sources, Theories and Methodologies: A Case Study of Nineteenth Century Catholicism in Northeast China.” In Narratives from the Hinterland: Perspective, Methodology, and Trends on the Studies of Christianity in China, edited by Wu Xiaoxin, 325–339. Beijing: Guangxi Normal University Press.

2013. “Dissemination of Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Northeast China: A Study of MEP Archives on Missions Mandchourie.” In Manuscripts, Memories, Localization, and Explanations: New Perspectives on Christianity in Northeast China and Sino-Western Cultural Exchange, edited by Zhao Yifeng, 107–127. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House.

2013. “God’s Little Daughters: Christian Virgins and Catholic Communities of Women in Northeast China.” The Chinese Historical Review 20, no. 1: 16–33.

2012. “Measuring Catholic Faith in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century China.” In In God’s Empire: French Missionaries and the Modern World, edited by Owen White and J. P. Daughton, 173–194. New York: Oxford University Press.

2000. “Women in Revolutionary France: Reform of Inheritance Laws and Public Participation.” Beida Shixue (Clio at Beida) 7: 58–81.

TEACHING AND COURSES TAUGHT

• SINO1003 Greater China: A Multi-disciplinary Introduction
• SINO2001 China in the World: from Sinology to China Studies
• SINO2003 China in the World: Critical Paradigms
• SINO2004 Research Skills for China Studies
• SINO2013 Women and Gender in Chinese History
• SINO3001 China Studies Research Project (Capstone)
• HIST2151 God, Guns, Sex: Religion, Revolution, and Gender in Late Imperial and Modern China
• HIST2143 Love and Loyalty: Women and Gender in Chinese History
• HIST2114 China and the Wider World since 1600
• GLAS2114 China in Northeast Asia
• GLAS2141 Women and Gender in Asian History
• GLAS2149 Greater China: A Multi-Perspective Inquiry
• GLAS 2133 Microhistory in a Global Age