Skip navigation
Faculty of Arts
University of Alberta

Dunch, Ryan

Dr. Ryan Dunch

(Associate Professor)

Ph.D., History
Yale University (1996)

M.A., History
University of British Columbia (1987)

B.A., (Hons) Asian Studies
Australian National University (1987)

2-9 Tory Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton AB T6G 2H4
Tel. (780) 492-6484

ryan.dunch@ualberta.ca


"To plumb the limits of heaven and earth and comprehend the changes of the ages"
Sima Qian (145-86? B.C.) on the task of the historian

Expertise & Research Interests

  • Christianity in China
  • Nationalism
  • Religion and the Chinese state
I am currently working on the role of missionary publishing in Chinese in altering the intellectual and social landscape of late Qing China. I was awarded a SSHRC grant for this project in 2001, under the title "Reading missionary modernity in late Qing China."

One thrust of that project has been to compile an annotated bibliographic database of mission publication in Chinese from 1800 to 1911 (excluding periodicals, and Bibles and Bible portions). A searchable draft version of the database is available at https://ra.tapor.ualberta.ca/Endnote/display_form_search.php. I am working on adding Chinese text and further annotations to it. Comments and corrections are welcome.

Teaching
  • East Asian History
  • Modern China
  • Chinese-Western Interactions
  • Modern World History

Courses

  • Hist 111 The Early Modern World
  • Hist 120 The Modern World
  • Hist 120 World History since the Eighteenth Century
  • Hist 280 East Asia to 1500
  • Hist 281 East Asia since 1500
  • Hist 285 China and the West
  • Hist 385 Modern China
  • Hist 494 Topics in Comparative History - Salvation or Subversion? Perspectives on Christian Missions in Modern China, 1807-1950
  • Hist 494 Topics in Comparative History - Asia and the Rise of the West
Publications

Books Written:

Fuzhou Protestants and the Making of a Modern China, 1857-1927 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001)

Articles and Chapters:

Beyond Cultural Imperialism: Cultural Theory, Christian Missions, and Global Modernity, History and Theory 39:3 (2002), 301-325.

Protestant Revolutionaries in Fujian, 1901-1911, Asian Profile 31:5 (2003), 361-373.

Protestant Christianity in China Today: Fragile, Fragmented, Flourishing, in China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future, edited Stephen Uhalley, Jr. and Xiaoxin Wu (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000)

Mission Schools and Modernity: The Anglo-Chinese College, Fuzhou, in Education, Culture, and Identity in 20th Century China, edited Glen Peterson, Ruth Hayhoe, and Yongling Lu (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001)