Ding, Rui

Rui Ding is a PhD student in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her main area of research is premodern Chinese history, primarily from the Ming (1368-1644) to the early Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. She focuses on transnational trade and the circulation of commodities, bulk and luxurious, at the northern frontiers and how they influenced both the state-making enterprise and borderland societies. Her research combines material culture, colonialism, imperialism methodologies, and the perspective of transnational history.

Her doctoral dissertation project will examine the Ming military settlements in the northeast and northwest frontiers, examining how the demand for foreign goods transformed the Ming’s state-making projects. The Ming court, different social groups, and borderland localities contributed to the transformation of patterns of transnational interactions at the frontier.