Soojung Han is a historian of Middle Period China and Inner Asia from 300 to 1300. Her research and teaching interests include ethnicity and identity, women and gender, diplomacy and politics, and frontier studies.

Her current book project, The Shatuo Turks and the Remaking of the Sino-Inner Asian World, presents an ethnopolitical history of the transition between Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) from the eighth to eleventh centuries. Han explores how the Shatuo Turks rose from migrants to rulers and forged a new balance of power across Sino-Inner Asia. She argues that the identity formation, diplomatic relations, and politics of the tenth century compelled many of the seismic changes between the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) dynasties, fundamentally reshaping the Sino-Inner Asian world.

Her other works delve into gender, ethnicity, diplomacy, and power in Middle Period China. At Southwestern, Han teaches courses on China, East Asia, gender, ethnicity and identity, and global history.

She received her Ph.D. in East Asian Studies from Princeton University in 2022 where she trained in ethnicity and identity history, diplomatic and political history, and frontier studies of Middle Period China. She earned her B.A. and M.A. from Seoul National University in South Korea where she was trained as a historian of gender of Middle Period China and Inner Asia.

Selected Awards and Honors

• Visiting Assistant Professor 2022-2024, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University (NYU). 2022. (Declined)
• Teaching Award for Excellence in Instruction in the Collaborative Teaching Initiative in the Humanities and Social Sciences, The Graduate School of Princeton University, 2022.
• Graduate Student Award, Fourth Conference of the Early Medieval China Group, The Early Medieval China Group (EMCG), 2021.
• The Tsang Yee and Wai Kwan Chan So P*71 Fellowship for Chinese History and Culture, Princeton University, 2018.
• Best Senior Thesis Award, Department of Asian History, Seoul National University, 2007.

Fellowships

• PIIRS Graduate Fellow, Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS), Princeton University, 2020-2021.
• Dean’s Fellowship, The Graduate School, Princeton University, 2019-2020.
• Fellowship of the Program of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, 2019-2020.
• Graduate Student Fellow, “Migration: People and Cultures across Borders.” Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) Research Community, Princeton University, 2017-2019 .
• Graduate Fellow, Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity Graduate Student Summer Fellowship, Princeton University, 2016-2017.
• Graduate Student Fellowship. Princeton University, 2014-2019.

Journal Articles

“To Become Friendly with One’s Neighbor: Changes to Diplomatic Relations through Marriage Alliance Systems in Middle Period China (304-907)” (in progress)

“Cosmopolitanism and Imperial Women in the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern Dynasties (304–581),” Modern Asian Studies (forthcoming)

“The Rise and Fall of the Sui-Tang Empresses,” S.N.U Papers on Asian History 31 (2007), 97-132.

Chapter in Edited Volumes

“Defining Identities: Notes on Ethnic Terminologies in the Chinese Medieval World (304-960 CE),” in Ethnic Terminologies in Eurasian Perspective, eds. Walter Pohl, Cinzia Grifoni, and Sophie Gruber, Brill (Viscom Series). (Forthcoming)

Book Reviews

Review of Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers and the Forge of the Modern World, Pamela Kyle Crossley, “Transnational and Comparative,” The Journal of Asian Studies, 80.4, November 2021.

Podcasts

“Medieval Chinese and Inner Asian Politics,” Medievalists.net. August 2021.

Selected Invited Talks

• “The Rise of the Shatuo Turks: Identity Formation in Medieval China,” Asia in Depth Series, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., March 2024.
• “Forging a New Sino-Inner Asian Order: The Brotherly Relations Between the Shatuo Turks and Kitans (907–979),” China Humanities Seminar Series, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 2023.
• “Forging a New Sino-Inner Asian Order in Middle Period China,” NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York, NY, February 2022.
• “Transregional Identities and Diplomacy across Medieval Asia,” Department of East Asian Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, February 2022.
• “Finding “Middle Ground”: The Empress-Consort Systems in the Northern Dynasties (386-589),” Conference on Cosmopolitan Pasts of China and the Eurasian World, Institute of Sinology, Department of Asian Studies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, June 2021.
• “A Brotherhood Sharing All Under Heaven: The Diplomatic Dynamics between the Five Dynasties and Liao,” Department of History, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME, April 2021.
• “Fictive Kinship: Ethnopolitics in Medieval East Eurasia,” Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, February 2021.
• “Constructing the Identity of the “Elite” Shatuo Turks during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period China (907-960 AD),” Workshop on Identity Dynamics of Migrants to State/Imperial Heartlands Through the Ages, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), New York University, NY, November 2019.
• “Chinese Ethnic Terminology in the Tang and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Periods,” International Workshop on Ethnic Terminologies in the Early Middle Ages, Visions of Community, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, January 2019.
• “Comparative Perspectives on the Ethnography of Barbarians in the Early Medieval World: The Cases of Jordanes and Wei Shou,” Institute of Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, June 2016.

Conference Presentations

• “An Integrated Empire: The “Great Liao” in the Tenth Century,” The 233rd Meeting of the American Oriental Society (AOS), Los Angeles, California, March 2023.
• “The Newly Integrated Empire: Liao Taizong’s Rule over the Middle Kingdom,” Kitan Network Annual Symposium 2023, Co-hosted by Waseda University (Japan) and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, January 2023.
• “Tipping the Scales: The Rise and Fall of “Empress-ship” in Tang,” Panel Co-Organizer, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Honolulu, Hawaii, March 2022 (Sponsored by the T’ang Studies Society).
• “Empress Dowager Lou the Kingmaker: Identity Politics in Northern Qi (550-577),” Early Medieval China Group Conference, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, March 2021 (Graduate Student Award).
• “A Brotherhood Sharing All Under Heaven: The Diplomatic Dynamics between the Five Dynasties and Liao,” Panel Co-Organizer, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Virtual Annual Conference, March 2021 (Sponsored by the T’ang Studies Society).
• “The “Exotic” Pillars: The Imperial Lineage and Self-Identification of the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577),” Individual Paper, New England Regional Conference of the Association of Asian Studies (NEAAS), University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, October 2020.
• “Constructing Identities of the Shatuo Turks: The Myth of Raising Horses and Sheep,” Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference (CESS), George Washington University, Washington DC, October 2019.
• “To Become Friendly with One’s Neighbor: Diplomatic Relations through Intermarriages during the Sixteen States and Northern Dynasties Periods (304-589 CE),” Panel Co-Organizer, Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference (AAS), Denver, Colorado, March 2019.
• “Consolidating Power and Engendering Identity: Marriage Practices of the Ruling Class During the Return to Allegiance Army Period in Dunhuang,” Association for Asian Studies in Asia: India (AAS in Asia), New Delhi, India, July 2018.
• “No Crown Princesses but Many Coterminous Empresses,” The Society for Historical Studies of Ancient and Medieval China Conference, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea, March 2013.