Transnational China: The Circulation of Ideas, People, and Material Cultures
The Scottish Centre for China Research has a programme of research on the circulation of ideas, people, and material cultures across borders. Its themes include intellectual and literary history, textual and conceptual translation, food histories, and the movement and transformation of material culture. These areas are approached through both historical and contemporary perspectives, drawing attention to the ways in which China has been connected to wider global and European contexts through shifting networks of exchange, mobility, and translation.
Rather than treating these fields separately, the Centre emphasises their intersections, exploring how ideas, cultural practices, and material objects and knoweldge are reshaped as they move across linguistic, social, and geographical boundaries. Particular attention is given to the transnational dynamics of China-Europe entanglements, and to the diverse actors and settings through which these circulations take place.
We welcome proposals for PhD study with a China focus on literature, history, translation studies, and related humanities fields. You can find out more about our publications, completed PhD dissertations, and research projects below.
Publications on transnational China
Liang, Hongling (2026) Educating China in Europe: Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Modernity, 1907-1946. Series: Asian History. Routledge: London. ISBN 9789048559138 (In Press)
Liang, Hongling (2023) Education as revolution: theorising education and learning in Xin Shiji (1907-1910). Twentieth-Century China, 48(2), pp. 89-109. (doi: 10.1353/tcc.2023.0010)
Liang, Hongling (2022) Liuxue: un rite de passage vers la modernité. In: Frangville, Vanessa, Lauwaert, Françoise and Villard, Florent (eds.) Mots de Chine: Ruptures, Persistances, Emergences. Presses Universitaires de Rennes. ISBN 9782753586611
Liang, Hongling (2016) Chinese anthropology and its domestication projects: Dewesternization, Bentuhua and overseas ethnography. Social Anthropology, 24(4), pp. 462-475. (doi: 10.1111/1469-8676.12307)
PhD dissertations on transnational China
Zhang, Menghui (2026) Articulation and dislocation: translation as the engine of WTO ‘applicability’ in China. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
Ouyang, Yunjing (2025) English translation of Hongloumeng and the establishment of early British knowledge of China in the nineteenth century. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
Yu, Minlin (2025) The male lens on Jane Eyre: translating/constructing femininity across a century of Chinese cultural history. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow
Projects on transnational China
Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant “Chinese Modernity/French Education: Chinese journals published in France (1907 to 1934)”, £3,534, 2018 (PI, Hongling Liang)