Timothy O'Neill
Visiting Assistant Professor
Ph.D., 2010, University of Washington. East Asian history; China; historiography; identity construction; language theory.
Office: Mack Social Sciences, MSS 211
Phone: (775) 327-5164
Email: toneill@unr.edu
I joined the department as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2011. My primary areas of focus are imperial and modern China, East Asian cultural history, historiography, and classical Mediterranean and early modern European intellectual history (especially theories of language). I am broadly interested in how pre-modern Chinese described and theorized language and its relationship to identity construction, social order, and historical understanding—and in how this differs from the European intellectual-historical trajectory regularly viewed as an epistemic norm.
My current research projects include an article on Xu Shen’s scholarly agenda—analyzing how the Shuowen jiezi uses lexicographic analysis to construct a narrative of the past, advocate the legitimacy of specific types of political institutions and texts, and assert a particular social identity. Longer term projects include a manuscript about Sima Qian as transgressive reader and historian—examining issues of language, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, violence, and political legitimacy in the Shiji. I have studied at the University of Maryland, the University of Chicago, the University of Washington, National Taiwan University, and Tsinghua University. My work has been supported by research grants and dissertation fellowships from various sources including the Fulbright Program, the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, the Francis L. Blakemore Foundation, and the Jackson School of International Studies.
Courses:
HIST 211: History of East Asia I
HIST 212: History of East Asia II
HIST 450a/650a: Modern Chinese History
HIST 494c/694c: Topics in Chinese Culture: Gender and Sexuality in Pre-modern China
CH 202: The Modern World