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Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

 
East Asian Studies
Director of Studies at: 
St Edmund's College & Hughes Hall
Email address: 
Biography: 

Sally K Church studied Chinese history at Middlebury College for her BA. She obtained an MA in Chinese literature at the University of Chicago and a PhD, also in Chinese literature, at Harvard. She came to Wolfson in 1998 as a Junior Research Fellow, and was appointed Tutor in September 2001. In 2004 she began running the College's Thesis Writing Group, and in 2005 was appointed International Student Liaison Officer at the College, at which point she began also to run Academic English Classes at the College.

Her academic work focuses on various aspects of pre-modern Chinese history, especially on the maritime expeditions of Zheng He (1405-1433), the history of Chinese ships during the Ming period and earlier, and Chinese diplomatic history during the Ming. She is producing a critical edition of the Longjiang Shipyard Treatise, a 16th century work by a Chinese bureaucrat who was trying to turn a corrupt and failing shipbuilding institution around; and mapping the overland journey of Chen Cheng, Chinese ambassador to the Timurids, who made the nine-month journey along the Silk Road from China to Herat three times on horseback in the early 15th century. She is also producing, together with Dr Robert Harding, a new annotated translation of the travel account of the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian, who went to India in 399-414 AD. She was co-author of the Oxford Starter Chinese Dictionary, published in 2000.

Teaching responsibilities: 
Dr Church does not currently teach in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. She has close links to the Faculty as an Affiliated Researcher in Pre-Modern Chinese History.