Chinese visitor hosted by department

Since last spring, the History Department has been hosting a Chinese visitor. Dr. Yidan Yang is an associate professor in the College of Humanities, Northwest A&F University. He is an expert in agricultural history, Chinese economic history, and rural social history of China, and has been pursuing research in these areas using library and other resources at Iowa State. Dr. Yang reports that he has had a very productive year so far. In October he attending the second annual conference of the Purdue Nanjing Joint Center for China Studies at Purdue University, where he presented a paper about the China International Famine Relief Commission (CIFRC) and its influences on the modern transformation of China’s traditional relief system. He has also completed two papers that are currently in submission to Chinese journals: ‘Natural Disaster, Famine and Charitable Loan in Ming Dynasty,’ submitted to the Journal of Historical Science (Kaifeng, China), and ‘Fragile Moral Obligation: A Review on the National Rural Credit System in Chinese History,’ submitted to Researches in Chinese Economic History (Beijing). Most importantly, he has published a book: The Structure and Change of Social Risk in Rural China (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press). Congratulations to Dr. Yang on that accomplishment.