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matthew sommer

Matthew H. Sommer

Associate Professor of Chinese History

E-mail: msommer@stanford.edu

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At Stanford Since 2002

Ph.D., UCLA, 1994; M.A., University of Washington, 1987; B.A., Swarthmore College, 1983

Research Interests

My research focuses on sexuality, gender relations, and law during the Qing dynasty (1644-1912) and the main sources for my work are legal cases from central and local archives in China.  The main local archives I use happen to be located in Sichuan, which is my favorite part of China (the photo shows me eating Yibin-style “flaming noodles” at a restaurant in Chengdu).  I also like to use popular fiction and other non-legal sources for historical research.

My first book (see below) is primarily a legal history, but my current projects use legal cases to explore social historical topics.  The manuscript of my second book is near completion; its title is POLYANDRY AND WIFE-SELLING IN QING DYNASTY CHINA: SURVIVAL STRATEGIES AND JUDICIAL INTERVENTIONS (under contract to Stanford University Press).  I am also working on a new long-term project on male same-sex union and masculinity in eighteenth-century China.  In conjunction with that project, I have organized an international conference on "Same-Sex Desire and Union in China: Historical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives," which will take place at the Stanford Humanities Center on May 16-17, 2008 (http://desire.stanford.edu/index.html). This conference is free and open to the public.

Courses Taught

Undergraduate Lecture Classes

  • Late Imperial China: From the Mongol Invasions to the 1911 Revolution
  • Historical Roots of Modern East Asia (with Karen Wigen)

Undergraduate Colloquia

  • Chinese Women’s History
  • Law and Society in Late Imperial China
  • Homosexuality in Historical and Comparative Perspective

Graduate Colloquia

  • Gender and Sexuality in Chinese History
  • Law and Society in Late Imperial China
  • Frontier Expansion and Ethnic Statecraft in the Qing Empire
  • Key Topics in Qing History
  • Homosexuality in Historical and Comparative Perspective
  • State, Society, and Economy in Qing Dynasty China

Graduate Research Seminar

  • Qing Legal Texts as Sources for Historical Research

Selected Publications

  • Sex, Law and Society in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 2000).
  • “Making Sex Work: Polyandry as a Survival Strategy in Qing Dynasty China,” in Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds., Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labor and Cultural Change in Late Imperial and Modern China (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 29-54)

University Service

  • Director of Honors and Research, History Department (2008-present)
  • Member, Academic Senate (2008-2010)
  • Steering Committee, Center for East Asian Studies (2003-05, 2008-present)
  • Committee on Libraries (C-LIB) (2007-present)
  • C-LIB Subcommittee on Digital Information Technologies in the Research Library Environment at Stanford (2008-present)