Scottish Centre for China Research

16 March 2022 Seminar: Creating the Opium War: British imperial attitudes towards China, 1792-1840

Dr Gao Hao, University of Exeter. 

Title: ‘Creating the Opium War: British Imperial Attitudes towards China, 1792-1840.’ 

16 march 2022 at 4–5.30pm (by zoom, registration required) 

Abstract:

This talk examines British perceptions of and attitudes towards China during their encounters from the Macartney embassy to the outbreak of the Opium War, based on Dr Gao's recently published monograph Creating the Opium War: British Impeiral Attitudes towards China, 1792-1840. The book makes the first attempt to bring together the political history of Sino-Western relations and cultural studies of British representations of china, as a new way of connecting 'top-down' international history with 'bottom-up' global history. it adds a new dimension to explain the origins of the Opium War, which arguably reshaped Sino-Western relations in the modern age. 

Dr Hao Gao is Senior Lecturer in imperial and global history at the University of Exeter. He is a historian of British imperialism in asia, China in global history, particularly the encounters between the British and the Chinese empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr Gao is the author of Creating the Opium War (MUP, 2020) and various research articles in both English and Chinese journals, including History, Historical Research, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, and Britain and the World. He currently serves as the university's Academic Director for the UK-China Humanities Alliance (ukcha), with Exeter as the lead university on the UK side.   

SCCR seminar programme

Seminar and workshop programme 2021–22

Semester 2 (Spring)

All events will be held via Zoom

Times are UTC/GMT

Registration details soon to be posted on this site.

9 February 2022 at 10am–1.40pm Workshop

Title: ‘Understanding China’s Covid-19 Pandemic: China’s National and Local Responses to the Pandemic.’

Speakers: Qian Jiwei and Yoel Kornreich; Yajun Bao; Zhang Gaorong and Xiao Diwen; Tai Yuehong, Yao Jielu and Elise Pizzi.

 Workshop 1 programme (including registration)

23 February 2022 at 10am–1.40pm Workshop      

Title: ‘Understanding China’s Covid-19 Pandemic: Covid-19 and Chinese Politics.’

Speakers: Qin Xuan and Catherine Owen; Holly Snape, Weinan Wang and Hua Wang; Kailing Xie and Yunyun Zhou; Chi Zhang.

Workshop 2 programme (including registration)

9 March 2022 at 4–5.30pm Roundtable Discussion

Title: 'War in Ukraine and China–Russian Relations.'

Speakers: Charles Parton OBE (TBC), Marcin Kaczmarski (University of Glasgow), and Jane Duckett (University of Glasgow) and others (TBC).

16 March 2022 at 4–5.30pm Seminar

Title: ‘Creating the Opium War: British imperial attitudes towards China, 1792-1840.’

Speaker: Dr Gao Hao, University of Exeter.

The Scottish Centre for China Research Seminar Programme gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the MacFie Bequest.
For enquiries and information, please contact: Professor Jane Duckett (jane.duckett@glasgow.ac.uk)ett (jane.duckett@glasgow.ac.uk)

Past Events