MATTHEW H. SOMMER
蘇成捷
Curriculum Vitae
PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS:
2021-present: Bowman Family Professor of History and, by courtesy, of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University
2015-present: Professor, Department of History, Stanford University
2017-20: Department Chair
2015-17: Department Vice-Chair
2002-15: Associate Professor (with tenure), Department of History, Stanford University
2001 (Fall semester): Visiting Associate Professor of History, Swarthmore College
2000-02: Associate Professor (with tenure), Department of History, University of
Pennsylvania
1994-2000: Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Pennsylvania
EDUCATION:
1994 Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles (History)
Advisor: Philip C. C. Huang 黃宗智
1987 M.A., University of Washington (International Studies: China)
1983-85 Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies, Taipei
1983 B.A. (High Honors), Swarthmore College (Political Science/Asian Studies)
BOOKS:
The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China, Columbia University Press, 2024.
*John K. Fairbank Prize, American Historical Association
*Peter Gonville Stein Book Award, American Society for Legal History
*John Boswell Prize, LGBTQ+ History Association
*Finalist, Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Studies
*Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title
*Chinese translation forthcoming (2026), Oriental Publishing Center, China Publishing Group
Polyandry and Wife-Selling in Qing Dynasty China: Survival Strategies and Judicial Interventions, University of California Press, 2015.
*Inaugural winner of the Peter Gonville Stein Book Award, American Society for Legal History
*Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title
*Chinese translation in process, under contract to Guangxi Normal University Press
Sex, Law, and Society in Late Imperial China, Stanford University Press, 2000; paperback, 2002.
*Chinese translation (traditional characters) 2022, Ainosco Press, Taiwan
*Chinese translation (simplified characters) 2023, Guangxi Normal University Press – 40,000+ copies sold within first year, now in seventh printing; one of Douban.com’s top ten best books in history and culture from 2023
REFEREED PAPERS AND BOOK CHAPTERS:
Forthcoming, 2026: “Comment,” for “Symposium on Mitra Sharafi, ‘Abortion in South Asia, 1860–1947: A Medico-Legal History,’ ” Modern Asian Studies, 59:2.
Forthcoming, 2025: “清代法庭中的性别与身体” (The Gendered Body in the Qing Courtroom, trans. by Jing Fenghua 景风华), in 黄宗智 (Philip C. C. Huang), ed.,《实践法史与法理：综合中西的研究》 (The Study of Legal Practice and Theory: Syncretizing East and West), Guangxi Normal University Press.
2024: “An Informal Death Penalty at the Ba County Jail? Magisterial Discretion and Criminal Procedure at the Grassroots in Qing Dynasty China,” in Joan Judge et al., eds., The Sinosphere and Beyond: Essays in Honor of Joshua Fogel, De Gruyter, pp. 139-155.
2022: “Sexual Acts and the Articulation of Norms and Hierarchies in The Plum in the Golden Vase,” in Andrew Schonebaum, ed., Approaches to Teaching The Plum in the Golden Vase (The Golden Lotus), Modern Language Association of America, pp. 285-294.
2020: “Legal Understandings of Sexual and Domestic Violence in China,” in Robert Antony et al., eds., The Cambridge World History of Violence, Volume 3 – AD 1500-AD 1800, Cambridge University Press, pp. 219-235.
2020: “Some Problems with Corpses: Standards of Validity in Qing Homicide Cases,” in Martin Hoffman et al., eds., Powerful Arguments: Standards of Validity in Late Imperial China, Brill, pp. 431-470.
2013: “The Gendered Body in the Qing Courtroom,” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 22: 2 [special issue: Sexuality in Imperial China], pp. 281-311.
2012: “Scandal in the Garden: The Story of the Stone as a ‘Licentious Novel’,” in Andrew Schonebaum and Tina Lu, eds., Approaches to Teaching The Story of the Stone (Dream of the Red Chamber), Modern Language Association of America, pp. 186-207.
2011: “堕胎在明清时期的中国：日常避孕抑或应急性措施？” (Abortion in Late Imperial China: Routine Birth Control or Crisis Intervention? trans. by Zhang Yu 张宇), 《中国乡村研究》 (Rural China: An International Journal of History and Social Science), 9, pp. 1-52.
2010: “Abortion in Late Imperial China: Routine Birth Control or Crisis Intervention?” Late Imperial China, 31: 2, pp. 97-165; reprinted 2014 in Philip C. C. Huang and Kathryn Bernhardt, eds., Research from Archival Case Records: Law, Society, and Culture in China, Brill, pp. 119-190.
2009: “清代縣衙的賣妻案件審判：以272件巴縣、南部與寶坻縣案子為例證” (The Adjudication of Wife-Selling in Qing County Courts: 272 Cases from Ba, Nanbu, and Baodi Counties, trans. by Lin Wenkai 林文凱), in Qiu Pengsheng 邱澎生 and Chen Xiyuan 陳熙遠, eds., 《明清法律運作中的權利與文化》 (Power and Culture in Ming-Qing Law), Lianjing Chuban Gongsi, pp. 345-396.
2007: “Was China Part of a Global Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality?” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques [special issue: Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality in Global Perspective], 33: 1, pp. 117-133.
2006: “清代法におけるジェンダーの構築” (The Construction of Gender in Qing Dynasty Law, trans. by Karasawa Yasuhiko 唐澤靖彦), in Mitsunari Miho 三成 美保, ed., 《ジェンダーの比較法史学》 (The Comparative Legal History of Gender), Osaka University Press, pp. 272-301.
2005: “性工作：作为生存策略的清代一妻多夫现象” (Sex Work: Polyandry as a Survival Strategy in the Qing Dynasty, trans. by Li Xia 李霞), 《新社会史》 (New Social History), special issue on 身体 · 心性 · 权力 (Body, Consciousness, Power), 2, pp. 236-262; reprinted (with revisions) 2009, in 黄宗智 (Philip C. C. Huang) and 尤陈俊 (You Chenjun), eds., 《从诉讼档案出发：中国的法律、社会与文化》 (Research from Archival Case Records: Law, Society and Culture in China, Past and Present), Falü Chubanshe, pp. 111-139.
2005: “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, pp. 29-54.
2002: “Dangerous Males, Vulnerable Males, and Polluted Males: The Regulation of Masculinity in Qing Dynasty Law,” in Susan Brownell and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, eds., Chinese Femininities/Chinese Masculinities: A Reader, University of California Press, pp. 67-88.
1997: “晩期帝制中国法における売春――十八世紀における身分パフォーマンスからの離脱” (Prostitution in Late Imperial Chinese Law: The Eighteenth-Century Shift Away from Status Performance, trans. by Terada Hiroaki 寺田浩明), 《中国―社会と文化》 (China – Society and Culture), 12, pp. 294-328.
1997: “The Penetrated Male in Late Imperial China: Judicial Constructions and Social Stigma,” Modern China, 23: 2, pp. 140-180.
1996: “The Uses of Chastity: Sex, Law, and the Property of Widows in Qing China,” Late Imperial China, 17: 2, pp. 77-130.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS:
2013: “The Field of Qing Legal History,” in Zhang Haihui et al., eds., A Scholarly Review of Chinese Studies in North America, Association for Asian Studies [open access e-book], pp. 113-132.
2012: Foreword to Amy Stanley, Selling Women: Prostitution, Markets, and the Household in Early Modern Japan, University of California Press, pp. xi-xvi.
2010: “北美清代法制史研究” (The Field of Qing Legal History in North America, trans. by Xue Zhaohui 薛昭慧), in Zhang Haihui 张海惠 et al., eds., 北美中国研究 – 概述、教学及文献资源 (Chinese Studies in North America: Research, Teaching and Resources), Zhonghua Shuju, pp. 244-266.
2005: “Qing County Archives in Sichuan: An Update from the Field,” with Karasawa Yasuhiko and Bradly Reed, Late Imperial China, 26: 2 (December), pp. 114-128.
1994: Translation (from Chinese) of Jing Junjian, “Legislation Related to the Civil Economy in the Qing Dynasty,” in Kathryn Bernhardt and Philip Huang, eds., Civil Law in Qing and Republican China, Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 42-84.