I studied Classical and Modern Sinology, Romance languages and literatures, and Sociology at the University of Heidelberg, and Chinese literature in Shanghai. The research for my PhD thesis on political editorials in the late nineteenth-century Shanghai press was part of a larger project on the Shanghai Chinese-language press in foreign possession and the transformation of the Chinese public sphere. Before joining SOAS I was an assistant professor in Classical Sinology at the University of Heidelberg. While my interests in the field of China’s social and intellectual history continue to be relatively broad, my own active research has moved to the history of disasters in the early modern period and environmental history more generally. I’m currently working on a monograph on the experience of famine in late Qing and early Republican China and pursuing a collaborative project on landscapes and environmental change.
Previous PhD Students
Jocelyn Chatterton, ‘Protestant medical missionary experience during the war in China, 1937-1945: the case of Hubei province,’ 2010.
António Barrento, ‘On the move: tourist culture in China, 1895-1949,’ 2012.
Lifeng Han, ‘Carnival politics: festival spectacle and ritual in Song China, 960-1279,’ 2012.
Fion So, ‘Navigating protectionism: Diederichsen, Jebsen & Company in German Qingdao and the world, 1898-1908,’ 2014.
Lin Jiao, 'Nation, fashion and women’s everyday lives : breast-binding in China, 1910s-1970s,' 2017.
Linfen fangzhi zhuanji zhong de zaihai tiyan 1600~1900 [临汾方志传记中的灾害体验1600-1900]. Translation of "What Chinese Biographies of Moral Exemplars Tell Us about Disaster Experiences, 1600~1900"
Review of 'Gutenberg in Shanghai. Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937'. By Christopher A. Reed. [Vancouver, Toronto: University of British Columbia Press, 2004. xvii, 391 pp.
Janku, Andrea (2005). The China Quarterly (182), pp 443-445
Review of 'Xiaohong Xiao-Planes, Éducation et politique en Chine. Le rôle des élites du Jiangsu, 1905-1914' Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2001
Janku, Andrea (2004). T'oung Pao (90) 4, pp 438-446
Landscapes and Local Identity: the Eight Views of Linfen
Janku, Andrea (2020). In: Merviö, Mika Markus, (ed.), Recent Social, Environmental, and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, pp 95-117
Landscapes and Environmental Change: Famous Views of Linfen
Janku, Andrea (2020). In: Merviö, Mika Markus, (ed.), Recent Social, Environmental, and Cultural Issues in East Asian Societies. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, pp 118-134
“New Methods to Nourish the People”: Late Qing Encyclopaedic Writings on Political Economy
Janku, Andrea (2013). In: Doleželová-Velingerová, Milena, (eds.) and Wagner, Rudolf G., (eds.), Chinese Encyclopaedias of New Global Knowledge (1870‐1920): Changing Chinese Ways of Thought. Heidelberg: Springer, pp 329-366
The Uses of Genres in the Chinese Press from the Late Qing to the Early Republican Period
Janku, Andrea (2011). In: Brokaw, Cynthia, (eds.) and Reed, Christopher, (eds.), From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition. Leiden: Brill, pp 111-157
'Heaven-Sent Disasters' in Late Imperial China: the Scope of the State and Beyond
Janku, Andrea (2009). In: Mauch, Christof, (eds.) and Pfister, Christian, (eds.), Natural Disasters, Cultural Responses: Case Studies Toward a Global Environmental History. Lanham: Lexington Books, pp 233-264
What Chinese Biographies of Moral Exemplars Tell Us about Disaster Experiences (1600~1900)
Janku, Andrea (2009). In: Summermatter, Stephanie, et al., (ed.), Nachhaltige Geschichte: Festschrift für Christian Pfister. Zürich: Chronos, pp 129-148
Kulturelle Spurensuche in den Hungergebieten Henans: ein Reisetagebuch (Searching for the Cultural Traces of the Past in the Famine Districts of Henan Province: a Travel Diary)
Janku, Andrea (2008). In: Leutner, Mechthild, (eds.) and Mühlhahn, Klaus, (eds.), Reisen in chinesischer Geschichte und Gegenwart. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp 71-94
Wei Huabei jihuang zuo zheng: jiedu Xiangling xianzhi ‘zhenwu’ juan [为华北饥荒作证:解读《襄陵县志》“赈务”卷 = Documenting the North-China Famine: the Chapter on Relief Affairs in the Xiangling xianzhi]
Janku, Andrea (2007). In: Li, Wenhai, (eds.) and Xia, Mingfang, (eds.), Tian you xiongnian: Qingdai zaihuang yu Zhongguo shehui = 天有凶年:清代灾荒与中国社会 (Years of Disaster: Natural Calamities and Chinese Society during the Qing Dynasty). Beijing: Sanlian shudian, pp 479-508
Ironie, Spott und Kritik: Zeitgenössische Ansichten über den Rebellen Kang Youwei (Irony, Mockery and Critique: Contemporary Views on the Rebel Kang Youwei)
Janku, Andrea (2006). In: Roetz, Heiner, (ed.), Kritik im alten und modernen China=Critique in ancient and modern China. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, pp 207-223
Translating Genre: How the Leading Article Became the Shelun
Janku, Andrea (2004). In: Lackner, Michael, (eds.) and Vittinghoff, Natascha, (eds.), Mapping Meanings. The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China. Leiden: Brill, pp 329-353
Der Leitartikel in der frühen chinesischen Presse: Aspekte kultureller Interaktion auf der Ebene des Genres (The leading article in the early Chinese press: aspects of cultural interaction as seen from the perspective of genres)
Janku, Andrea (1999). In: Rothermund, Dietmar, (ed.), Aneignung und Selbstbehauptung: Antworten auf die europäische Expansion = Appropriation and self-assertion: answers to the European expansion. Munchen: Oldenbourg, pp 111-136
Xiandai dushi de wenren he zhishi fenzi de shehui zeren: shi lun Shenbao zhubian Shanghai Huang Xiexun (1852-1925) [现代都市的文人和知识分子的社会责任:试论《申报》主编上海黄协埙 = The modern urban literati and the intellectual’s social duty: the case of Huang Xiexun from Shanghai, editor-in-chief of the Shanghai Daily]
Nur leere Reden: Politischer Diskurs und die Shanghaier Presse im China des späten neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. (Only Empty talk: political discourse and the Shanghai press in the late nineteenth century China)
The North-China Famine of 1876-1879: Performance and Impact of a Non-Event
Janku, Andrea(2001). In: Measuring Historical Heat: Event, Performance, and Impact in China and the West. Symposium in Honour of Rudolf G. Wagner on His 60th Birthday
Die letzte Saite [Translation of Ming ruo qinxian 命若琴弦, libretto by Wu Lan and Qu Xiaosong, adapted from a short story by Shi Tiesheng and the Yuan-dynasty drama Dou’e yuan by Guan Hanqing]