Columbia University New York, N.Y. 10027 Office of Public Information (212) 854-5573
Madeleine Zelin, a professor at Columbia University, historian of modern China and authority on Chinese economic and legal history, has been named director of the East Asian Institute at Columbia.
Based in Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, the institute is the oldest major university center providing interdisciplinary training to graduate students specializing in the East Asian region. Professor Zelin succeeds Andrew Nathan, professor of political science, who has returned to full-time teaching after three years as director.
She takes over the institute's leadership at a time of dramatic change in East Asia, with its burgeoning economy, passing of the old guard in China and North Korea, repatriation of Hong Kong, development of civil society in the Republic of Korea and end of one-party dominance in Japan and Taiwan.
"An understanding of East Asia in its largest context, both as part of a complex of economic and political relationships within the Pacific region as a whole, and as a major force in world affairs will be essential as we enter the 21st century," she said. "The East Asian Institute community of scholars is well situated to take the lead in educating researchers, teachers, diplomats and members of the legal and business communities to meet this challenge."
Professor Zelin, a graduate of Cornell University who earned the Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, joined the Columbia faculty in 1979 and was promoted to full professor in 1989. She has been director of Columbia's East Asian Title VI National Resource Center since 1987 and served as acting director of the East Asian Institute in 1992-93. She has received grants from the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Committee for Scholarly Communication with China and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation. She has been a visiting scholar at Beijing and Sichuan National Universities and is a pioneer in the development of archival research in China.
She has written numerous articles on China's economic development and business, legal and social history and is the author of The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth Century China and translator of Rainbow by Mao Dun. She is completing work on two new books, The Merchants of Zigong and The Development of Underdevelopment in China.
Professor Zelin's current research, supported by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, deals with Chinese contract law and its role in the development of the Chinese economy and jurisprudence.
She said the institute is planning new initiatives to strengthen its commitment and expertise in the region and in such fields as human rights, post-Socialist reform, multilateral diplomacy, post-Cold War security arrangements and technology and environmental studies. In addition, it plans to enhance teaching and research on the Pacific Basin and regional organizations such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. "As we near the 50th anniversary of the East Asian Institute in 1999, we look forward to the beginning of what promises to be the Pacific Century," she said.
10.95
18,737