Laichen Sun, Ph.D

Specialty: Early modern Southeast Asian history.

Research Interest: Southeast Asian-Chinese interaction; Asian gunpowder technology.

Courses Taught:

       110B: “World Civilizations, 1500 to the Present”
       461:  “Modern Vietnam”
       464A: “History of Southeast Asia to 1800”
       464B: “History of Southeast Asia, c. 1800 to the Present”  
       491 & 490: “Gunpowder Technology and the Early Modern World,”
       491: “Rural China since 1900”

Educational Background

• 1994-2000, Ph. D. (Southeast Asian history), University of Michigan
• 1992-1994, M.A. (Southeast Asian history), Northern Illinois University
• 1984-1987, M.A. (Southeast Asian history), Peking University, China
• 1980-1984, B.A. (History), Zhengzhou University, China

• Dec. 2007-May 2008, Visiting Fellow, Kyoto University
• 2003, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, National University of Singapore

Major Publications

•  “Chinese Historical Sources on Burma: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Works.” Journal of Burma Studies (Special Issue) 2 (1997): 1-116.
• “Introduction” to Sao Saimong Mangrai, The Padaeng Chronicle and the Jengtung State Chronicle Translated. Reprint, Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, the University of Michigan, 2002.
• “Chinese Military Technology Transfers and the Emergence of Northern Mainland Southeast Asia, c. 1390-1527.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34, 3 (2003): 495-517 (Chinese translation by Chinese scholars appears in the Bulletin of the Chinese Association for Southeast Asian Studies 1 [2005]: 27-39).
• “Chinese Gunpowder Technology and Dai Viet: c. 1390-1497.” In Nhung Tuyết Trần & Anthony Reid, ed., Viet Nam: Borderless Histories (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press), 104-59. Also published in the Working Papers Series (#11, 2003) by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/pub/wps2003/abs011.htm) and partially translated by “BBC Vietnamese” as “Công nghệ quân sự TQ và Đại Việt” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/vietnamese/entertainment/story/2004/02/040210_militarytechnology.shtml).
•  “On Studying the ‘‘Burmo-Chinese’ Historical Relationship” (Part I). Bulletin of the Chinese Association for Southeast Asian Studies 2 (2005): 1-16 (In Chinese).
• “On Studying the ‘Burmo-Chinese’ Historical Relationship: Centering on China’s Cultural Influence on Early Burma.” Ya Tai Yanjiu luncong (Asia-Pacific Studies) [Beijing University] 3 (2006): 210-233 (In Chinese).
• “An Age of Gunpowder in Eastern Asia, c. 1390-1683.” Translated by Nakajima Gakushuo as “Toubu Ajia ni okeru kaki no jidai, c. 1390-1683.” Kyushu University Oriental Historical Research 34 (April 2006): 1-9.  
• “The Burmese Bells and Chinese Eroticism: On Southeast Asia’s Cultural Influence on China,” forthcoming in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (June 2007).
• Co-editor (with Geoffrey Wade), Southeast Asia in the 15th Century: The Ming Factor (Singapore: Singapore University Press), under review.
• “Shan Gems, Chinese Silver, and the Rise of Shan Principalities in Northern Burma, c. 1450-1527.” In Geoffrey Wade & Sun Laichen, ed., Southeast Asia in the 15th Century (see above).
• “Assessing the Ming Role in China’s Southern Expansion.” In Geoff Wade & Sun Laichen, ed., Southeast Asia in the 15th Century (see above).

Recent Conference Presentations

• “The Age of Gem Trade in Asian History, c. 1279-1911.” Presented at the border-crossing panel “Society and Circulation in Eastern Eurasia” for the 58th annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, April 5-9, 2006, San Francisco.
• “The Expansion of the Nanzhao-Dali Kingdom.” Presented at the “Workshop on Asian Expansions: Historical Processes of Polity Expansion in Asia,” Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, 12-13 May, 2006.
• “An Age of Gunpowder in Eastern Asia, c. 1390-1683.” Lecture to be delivered at the workshop on “Theoretical Analysis of the Continuity and Discontinuity between the Early-Modern and Modern Periods in East and Southeast Asia,” Osaka & Kyushu University, Japan, January 11-20, 2006.
•  “Qing-Burmese Gem Trade, c. 1644-1911.” To be presented at the workshop “Ethnic Chinese Merchants and Chinese Capitalism in Southeast Asia: A History through Commodities,” Academic Sinica, Taibei, Taiwan, Dec. 19-20, 2005 (invited and fully funded)
• “The Moral World of Longquan Village.” To be presented at “The Second Annual California State University International Research Forum and Festival,” California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, November 15, 2005.
•  “Gunpowder Technology and Commerce in East and Southeast Asia, c. 1368-1683.” Presented at workshop “Northeast Asia in Maritime Perspective: A Dialogue with Southeast Asia,” Oct. 29-30, 2004, Okinawa, Japan.
• “Qi Jiguang and the Japanese Invasion of Korea (1592-98)” (border-crossing panel).  Presented at the border-crossing panel “Perspectives on the First Greater East Asian War and Its Aftermath, ca. 1560–1620,” the 56th meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 4-7, 2004, San Diego.

• Chair, panel of “Terrorists, Mortal Combat, and Women’s Communities,” Phi Alpha Theta Southern California Regional Conference, April 29, 2006.
• Co-chair & organizer, panel of “Globalizing Oral History: Understanding Rural China through Fieldwork.” To be presented at “The Second Annual California State University International Research Forum and Festival,” California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, November 15, 2005.
• Editor, E-AsPac (electronic journal of the scholarly association ASPAC [Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast]) (http://mcel.pacificu.edu/aspac/home/aspac.html).
• Coordinator, “California State University, Fullerton-Zhengzhou University Chinese Village Oral History Project” (funded by the President of Cal State Fullerton; undertaken in June 2005).
• Manuscripts reviewer for Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Journal of Burma Studies, The Ming Studies, and Columbia University Press.
• Chair, panel of “The Ming Factor,” Workshop “Northeast Asia in Maritime Perspective: A Dialogue with Southeast Asia,” Oct. 29-30, 2004, Okinawa, Japan.

• Member of the Organizing Committee, “Workshop on Southeast Asia in the Fifteenth Century and the Ming Factor,” 18-19 July 2003, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.
• Principal organizer of panel “Yunnan as Southeast Asia” (“Border-crossing panel”), the 55th Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 27-30, 2003, NYC.
• Panel organizer and chair, “China-Burma Relations Panel.” The International Conference on “Burma-Myanma(r) Research and its Future Implications for Scholars and Policymakers,”

21-25 September, 2002, Gothenburg, Sweden.

• Program co-chair & panel moderator, Burma Studies Conference, October 2-4, 1998, Dekalb, Northern Illinois University.
• Moderator, History Panel, Burma Studies Group Colloquium, October 26-27, 1995, Dekalb, Northern Illinois University.