Biography
A historian of imperial China and Southeast Asia, Dr. Davis offers courses on East Asia, Southeast Asia, and world history. His work crosses boundaries of geography and discipline, combining ethnographic research with archival sources to investigate the histories of communities in the uplands of the China-Southeast Asia borderlands. Since earning his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2008, Dr. Davis has held visiting appointments at Gonzaga University, l'Ecole-française d'extreme-orient, and the University of Paris. He has taught at Eastern since 2012.
Research Interests
- Environmental History of Southeast Asia
- History of Anthropology
- History of Animals
Of Note
A recipient of grants from the Fulbright-Hays program, the Blakemore Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Harvard Asia Center, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Dr. Davis has published work with the University of Washington Press, Brill, and several academic journals. He also is reviews editor for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and serves an Editorial Associate for the American Historical Review.
Teaching Interests
- East Asia and Southeast Asia
- Vietnam
- History of Drugs
- Asian Diasporas
- Environmental History
Publications
“Scholars at the Cockfight: Vietnamese Confucian Philosophy Between Empire and Colony,” chapter in
Cambridge History of Confucianism, ed Kiri Paramore. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, under contract for 2023.
“Finding Eunuchs in Imperial Vietnam: Question and Sources,” an interdisciplinary dialogue with Katherine Bowie,
South-East Asia Research, 30:4 (2022),426-433.
The Cultivated Forest: Histories of Trees and People in Asia [co-edited with Ian Matthew Miller, Brian G. Lander, and John S. Lee] Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022.
“Préface” to Nguyễn Thị Hải,
La Marche de CaoBằng: La Cour et les gardiens de frontière, des origines aux conséquences de la réforme de MinhMạng. Paris: Presses de l’Inalco, 2019.
Imperial Bandits: Outlaws and Rebels in the China-Vietnam Borderlands. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2017.
“Between Nation and Ethnos: Genealogies of Dân Tộcin Vietnamese Contexts,” in
Histories of Anthropology Annual: Volume 11 – Historicizing Theories, Identities, and Nations, ed Regna Darnell and Frederic W. Gleach, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017. 253-266.
“The Production of Peoples: Imperial Ethnography and the Changing Conception of Uplands Space in Nineteenth Century Vietnam,”
The Asia-Pacific Journal of Anthropology. 16:4 (August 2015), 323-342. [Vietnamese translation by Vũ Đức Liêm published as “Tạo ra tộc người: dân tộc học,”
Xưa và Nay. 525 (November 2020), 19-31.]
“Consular Optics: Rebels, Factions, and Commercial Interests in the China-Vietnam Borderlands, 1874-1879,”
CrossCurrents: East Asian History and Culture Review 3:2 (November 2014), 379-412.
https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-11“Volatile Allies: Two Cases of Powerbrokers in the Vietnamese-Chinese Borderlands,” in
China’s Encounters on the South and Southwest Reforging the Fiery Frontier Over Two Millennia, ed John Whitmore and James Anderson. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 322-338.
“Les Pavillons noirs et les pirates,” in
Indochine. Des territoires et des hommes 1856 -1956, ed Emmanuel Ranvoisy. Paris: Musée de l’Armée à Gallimard, 2013. 208.
Sách Cổ Người Dao (Ancient Yao Texts) [co-edited with Trần Hữu Sơn, Hoàng Sĩ Lực, and Philippe Le Failler] Two Volumes. Hanoi: Ethnic Culture Press, 2009.
https://easternct.academia.edu/BradleyCampDavis
