Cultural Responses to the "Incredible Famine" in Late Qing China, 1876-1879

FAIN: FB-52699-06

Kathryn Jean Edgerton-Tarpley
San Diego State University (San Diego, CA 92182-0001)

My book project focuses on cultural responses to trauma, particularly disparate responses to the massive famine that killed at least ten million people in North China in the 1870s. While the heart of my work is an analysis of local-level famine accounts from the northern province of Shanxi, I also examine how the disaster was depicted by Qing officials and by Chinese and British newspaper editors who covered the famine from treaty-port Shanghai. In order to complete the process of turning my dissertation into a book, I plan to fully rework one chapter of it by using new archival sources concerning the Qing Court's reactions to the famine and to incorporate other revisions suggested by senior colleagues and a university press publisher.