Li CHEN received a J.D. from the University of Illinois (magna cum laude), and then a Ph.D. in Chinese History from Columbia University.
His research and teaching interests include: Late Imperial and Modern China (the 15th through the 20th centuries), Chinese Law and Society, Sino-Western Relations, Law and Empire, Power/Knowledge and Modern Governmentality, History of Science and Biopower in Jurisprudence, Politics of Translation, Cultural Encounters and Orientalism, Critical Studies of International Law, Postcolonial Studies, Global History, and Historiography.
His most recent publications include a lead article, entitled "Law, Empire, and Historiography of Modern Sino-Western Relations: A Case Study of the Lady Hughes Controversy in 1784,” in the Law & History Review 27, no. 1 (2009), 1-53 (which won Honorable Mention for the Law and Society Association's 2011 Article Prize), and another entitled "Universalism and Equal Sovereignty as Contested Myths of International Law in the Sino-Western Encounter," Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d'histoire du droit international 13, no. 1 (2011), 75-116. A third one, "Legal Specialists and Judicial Administration in Late Imperial China, 1651-1911," is forthcoming in the journal of Late Imperial China (June 2012).
He is one of the authors of a multinational team-project, Official Handbooks and Anthologies of Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography, led by Professor Pierre-Etienne Will of the College de France (book forthcoming). He is revising a few other articles for publication. These articles deal with issues such as emotions and international politics in the 19th century, late imperial Chinese jurists and legal culture, imperial sovereignty and capital punishments in Qing China, and Chinese debates on legal reform and modernity in the 1870s-1910s. His research has been supported by grants from the Connaught Foundation, the University of Toronto, and the SSHRC of Canada. Currently, he is finishing up revising a book manuscript tentatively entitled “Law, Sovereignty, and Sensibility of Empire in the Sino-Western Encounter, 1700-1850," A review of an earlier version by David Luesink of the University of British Columbia is available at http://dissertationreviews.wordpress.com/2010/10/17/law-and-sensibility-of-empire-in-the-making-of-modern-china-1750-1900-by-li-chen-reviewed-by-david-luesink/
More information available at: http://individual.utoronto.ca/li_chen/

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