Mårten Söderblom Saarela

I received my PhD from Princeton University in 2015, and hold an MA in Sinology from the School of Oriental and African Studies. I am a historian of late imperial China, interested in the cultural and intellectual history of language. My dissertation and first research project focused on the Manchu language, particularly its script, and its influence on language studies in Qing China (1644–1911). The Manchu language and its script were nothing like Chinese, but they were used in the Qing empire—of which China was part—as the language of the ruling house and parts of the hereditary military elite until the early twentieth century. During my three and a half years at the MPIWG, I worked primarily on developing aspects of my dissertation into publications of varying scope. More information can be found on the project page.