Professor Li Chen received his J.D. from University of Illinois (magna cum laude) and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is currently Assistant Professor of Global Asia Studies and of History at the University of Toronto.

His research and teaching interests include late Imperial and modern China (15th through 20th centuries), Chinese law and society, Sino-Western relations, law and empire, history of science and biopower in jurisprudence, politics of translation, cultural encounters, international law, global history, and postcolonial studies.

He has been invited to present his research at various institutions including Duke, Columbia, Wisconsin, SUNY at Buffalo, and the College de France.

His most recent publications are Law, Empire, and Historiography of Modern Sino-Western Relations: A Case Study of the Lady Hughes Controversy in 1784, Law & History Review 27, no. 1 (2009), 1-53, and Universalism and Equal Sovereignty as Contested Myths of International Law in the Sino-Western Encounter, Journal of the History of International Law / Revue d’histoire du droit international 12 (2011), pages TBA.

He is one of the authors of a multinational team-project, Official Handbooks and Anthologies of Imperial China: A Descriptive and Critical Bibliography, led by Professor Pierre-Etienne Will of the College de France (forthcoming).

He is also revising a book manuscript entitled Sons of Different Gods: Law, Sovereignty, and Sensibility of Empire in the Sino-Western Encounter.

Credentials

B.A. (Beijing Foreign Studies)
M.A. (SUNY Buffalo)
J.D. (Illinois)
M.A., M.Ph., Ph.D. (Columbia)