Chun Xu

Xu, Chun 徐淳 works on the history of knowledge and environmental thought in late imperial China. His research focuses on the intersections of nature, culture and empire in the Southwest frontier of late imperial China. As a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, he is working on a project that examines the political epistemology of water control in late imperial China, tracing the emergence of the Chinese term shuili 水利 as both a political concept and a branch of statecraft-oriented scholarship. He is also leader of the working group "Agriculture and the Making of Sciences."

Chun Xu holds a PhD from Heidelberg University.