My name is Lei LIN 林蕾 (last name Lin). I am a Ph.D. candidate in History in the program of Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University. I specialize in the history of late imperial/early modern China, with a focus on frontiers and borderlands, inter-polity relations, war and diplomacy, and the ways in which these issues informed the state-building of China under the Qing (1644–1911) and the Republican (1911–1949) regimes. Using the paradigms of transnational history and empire studies, my research as a Chinese historian goes beyond the limits of the modern nation-state and examines early modern China and its position in Asian and global histories through a framework of comparative imperialism. With native Chinese, near-native English, proficient Japanese and Korean, and research abilities in Manchu, Tibetan, and Nepali, I draw on materials from multiple linguistic and intellectual traditions.

My first book project, “The Limits of Empire: The Qing-Gurkha War, China’s Borderlands, and The Trans-Himalayan Paradigm, 1788–1850,” examines the Qing empire-building and the early modern formation of borders in the trans-Himalayan region, by focusing on the war fought between Qing China and Gurkha Nepal over the control of Tibet, between 1788 and 1793. By proposing a trans-Himalayan paradigm of studying frontiers, my research provides a transnational framework for understanding the early modern making of sovereignty and the borders in Asia.

My work has been generously supported by Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation (CCKF), American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and Harvard Asia Center, among others.