Contact Information
Biography
Yifan Zheng is a historian of ancient China specializing in social, legal and institutional history of the early Chinese empires. His research examines how legal and administrative practices shaped the lives and identities of people across the social spectrum in the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods, with particular attention to marginalized groups and to the frontier regions.
Yifan is currently working on the manuscript for his first book, which analyzes excavated manuscripts, transmitted texts, and archaeological materials to explore how early imperial governments identified, categorized, and managed populations. By reconstructing state mechanisms such as registration systems, penal labor regimes, and frontier control, the book shows how these groups navigated state authority and reshaped the boundaries of belonging in early Chinese society. Adopting a bottom-up, periphery-to-center perspective, it uses a case study of a town in the periphery of the empire to explore how imperial policies were put into practice. In terms of narrative approach, Yifan aims to present a holistic, panoramic account of the region under study.
Yifan joined the History Department in Autumn 2025, after serving as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National University of Singapore. During his graduate studies, he was a visiting scholar at Kyoto University (2019) and the Yuelu Academy (2021). In his future research, Yifan plans to integrate geographical, economic, and environmental factors into his work, while extending the chronological scope into the early medieval period to develop a broader, more comprehensive understanding of ancient Chinese history.
Awards
Research
Selected Research
- Zheng, Y. (2024). “An Examination of the Liye No. 8-461 ‘Wooden Tablet of Nomenclature Changes and Its Implications for the Traditional View of the First Emperor’s (259-210 BCE) ‘Unification of Script.’’” Acta Orientalia Hung 77.1: 1-25. Download PDF
- Zheng, Y. (2024). “Hereditary Occupations and Designated State Service in Qin and Western Han China” [Qin Xi-Han shiqi de chouguan yu teshu zhiyi], in Lishi yanjiu [Historical Research] 2024. 4: 66-87. Download PDF
- Zheng, Y. (2023). “Family or Servant? The Ambiguity of Status in Early Chinese Households.” Journal of Asian History vol. 57: 7–46. Download PDF
- Zheng, Y. (2023). “Returning the Deceased to Hometowns: Frontier Administration in the Qin and Han Empires” (Chuan hui—Qin Han guojia dui guizang xiangli de zhidu sheding yu wenshu xingzheng), in Lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan [Bulletin of Institute of History and Philology](Academia Sinica), 94. 2: 279–325. Download PDF
- Zheng, Y. (2022). “Reading the “Biography of Confucius” Excavated from the Haihunhou Tomb” (Haihunhou mu Kongzi zhuanji xiao zha), in Jianghan kaogu [Jianghan Archaeology] 2022. 3: 130–33. Download PDF
- Csikszentmihalyi, Mark and Yifan Zheng (2021). “Narratives of Decline and Fragmentation and the Hanshu Bibliography’s Taxonomies of Technical Arts” in Mark Csikzentmihalyi and Michael Nylan eds., Technical Arts in the Han Histories: Tables and Treaties in the Shiji and Hanshu, SUNY, 367–405. Download PDF
- Zhang, Chi and Yifan Zheng (2021), “Historical Events, Dates, and Geography in the Early Warring States Period: Comparing the Yearly Chronicle of the Six States and Xi-nian Chapter 23” [Shiji liuguo nianbiao yu Qinghua jian xinian di ershisan zhang duidu], in Chutu wenxian [Excavated Manuscripts] vol. 5: 42–55. Download PDF
- Zheng, Y. (2015). “Reflections on the ‘Major Event Chronologies’ in Chu Bamboo Slips: Reconsidering the Date of Duke Luyang’s Fortification of Zheng Recorded in the Baoshan Chu Bamboo Slips” [Zailun Baoshan jian Luyang gong yi Chushi hou cheng Zheng zhisui], Jianghan kaogu [Jianghan Archaeology], 2015. 2: 64–70. Download PDF
- [Book Review] Zheng, Y. (2024) review. Zhang Zhongwei’s Research on the Legal Systems of Qin and Han Dynasties (Part II). International Society for Chinese Law & History Book Reviews Column.
- [Translation] Zheng, Yifan and Wang Xin trans. (2021), Saito Ken. “Retrospective and Outlook on Japanese Scholarship in Historical Study of the Warring States and Qin-Han Periods in 2020,” Shigaku zasshi [Historical Studies in Japan] 130.5.
Graduate Study Areas
Divisions
Students may work with Professor Zheng in early Chinese history, especially the pre-imperial and early imperial periods (roughly 8th century BCE to 4th century CE). A graduate field in early China may include political, social, legal, administrative, and intellectual history, with particular attention to empire-building, local governance, social hierarchy, status differentiation, law, frontier administration, everyday life, slavery and forced laborers, archaeology and material culture, intellectual history, historiography, and the relationship between transmitted texts and excavated manuscript materials.
Students will develop broad familiarity with the major historiographical questions in the study of early China, including the formation of the imperial state, the transformation of aristocratic and commoner society, the development of legal and bureaucratic institutions, the use of writing in governance and state ideology, and the social history of marginalized groups, etc. Depending on their research interests, students may also work with excavated texts, legal and administrative archives, and comparative approaches to ancient empires.
Students preparing early China as a primary field are expected to develop strong reading ability in classical/literary Chinese and familiarity with modern Chinese and Japanese scholarship. Training may include graduate seminars, directed readings, close reading of primary sources, and specialized work with excavated texts. Students taking early China as a secondary or comparative field may design a more focused reading program in consultation with Professor Zheng.
Students may also work with Professor Zheng on comparative topics related to ancient empires, law and society, state formation, social hierarchy, slavery and unfreedom, and the history of writing and administration. Comparative fields may be designed in conversation with other faculty and tailored to the student’s research and teaching needs.