Professor Edmund S. K. Fung

• Biography
• Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise
• Grants / Current Projects
• Publications
• Contact Details

Biography

Professor Edmund Fung was educated at the University of Hong Kong (BA Hons., MA resarch) and at the Australian National University, where he earned his Ph.D. He joined UWS in January 2004 as the foundation Professor of Asian Studies, after working for ninteen years at Griffith University, Brisbane, where he was Associate Professor of Chinese History and Dean of the Faculty of Asian and International Studies (1992-93). He had also taught at the National University of Singapore and Monash University.

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Areas of Research / Teaching Expertise

Professor Fung is an established historian of modern China. He has broad research interests, ranging from military to political to diplomatic to intellectual history. In recent years, he has specialised in Chinese cultural and political thought in Republican era, and has also developed an interest in Chinese democracy and in human rights issues.

In addition, he has been interested in Australia-China relations and published in this area.

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Grants / Current Projects

Recpient of an ARC Discovery Project Grant (2005-2007) and before that a UWS Research Grant (2004).

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Publications

Books:

The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 319 pages.

In Search of Chinese Democracy: Civil Opposition in Nationalist China, 1929-1949 (New York: Cambridge University Press). 407 pages.
A Chinese edition is forthcoming from the Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, in 2010.

The Diplomacy of Imperial Retreat: Britain's South China Policy, 1924-1931 (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press), 311 pages.

With Colin Mackerras, From Fear to Friendship: Australia's Policies Towards the People's Republic of China, 1966-1982 (St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1985), 351 pages.

With David Pong (eds), Ideal and Reality: Social and Political Change in Modern China 1860-1949 (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1985), 386 pages.

The Military Dimension of the Chinese Revolution: The New Army and Its Role in the Revolution of 1911 (Canberra: ANU Press and Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1981), 349 pages.

Articles in leading international journals:

"Nationalism and Modernity: The Politics of Cultural Conservatism in Republican China," Modern Asian Studies, 43, 3 (May 2009), 777–813.

"Were Chinese Liberals Liberal? Reflections on the Understanding of Liberalism," Pacific Affairs, 81, 4 (Winter 2008/2009), 557–76.

"The Idea of Freedom in Modern China Revisited: Plural Conceptions and Dual Responsibilities," Modern China, 32, 4 (October 2006), 453–482.

"State Building, Capitalist Development, and Social Justice: Social Democracy in China’s Modern Transformation, 1921-1949," Modern China, 31, 3 (July 2005), 318–352.

"New Confucianism and Chinese Democratization: The Thought and Predicament of Zhang Junmai," Twentieth-Century China, 28, 2 (April 2003), 41–71.

"Socialism, Capitalism, and Democracy in Republican China: The Thought of Zhang Dongsun," Modern China 28, 4 (October 2002), 399–431.

With Bai Ji’an,"An Exploration of the Buddhist-Confucian Thought of Liang Shumin," Journal of Oriental Studies (December 1999), 273–292. In Chinese.

Book chapters:

"Chinese Nationalism, Conservatism, and Modernity," in Zou Xiaozhan (ed.,) Nationalism in Modern China (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2007), pp. 42–59. In Chinese.

"Chinese Nationalism and Democracy during the War Period, 1937–1945: A Critique of the jiuwang–qimeng Dichotomy," in Billy K. K. So, John Fitzgerald, Huang Jianli and James Chin, eds., Power and Identity in the Chinese World Order: Festschrift in Honour of Professor Wang Gungwu (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003), pp. 201–220.

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