I am a historian of late imperial China with an interest in the cultural and intellectual history of language. I currently work as an associate research fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. In 2015–2018, I was a postdoc at the MPIWG. I returned as a visitor in July–August 2022. My book The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and Its Study in East Asia and Europe (2020) was based on my dissertation and research carried out during my time in Berlin. I continue to work on the roles played by the Manchu language in the Qing empire.
Projects
Selected Publications
Söderblom Saarela, Mårten (2020). “Manchu, Mandarin, and the Politicization of Spoken Language in Qing China.” In Language Diversity in the Sinophone World: Historical Trajectories, Language Planning, and Multilingual Practices, ed. H. Klöter and M…
Read More
Söderblom Saarela, Mårten (2020). “Joshua Marshman and the Study of Spoken Chinese.” T’oung-pao 106 (3–4): 401–457. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685322-10634P05.
Read More
Söderblom Saarela, Mårten (2020). “Linguistic Compartmentalization and the Palace Memorial System in the Eighteenth Century.” Late Imperial China 41 (2): 131–179. https://doi.org/10.1353/late.2020.0007.
Read More
Söderblom Saarela, Mårten (2020). The Early Modern Travels of Manchu: A Script and its Study in East Asia and Europe. Encounters with Asia. . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Read More