Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica

Kevin Kind is a historian of China specializing in the history of Xinjiang during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He received his PhD from the Department of History at Johns Hopkins University in 2024. Drawing on archival sources composed in Chinese and Chaghatay Turkic, his dissertation examines the role of Musulman (the ancestors of modern Uyghurs) forced labor in the imperial statecraft of Qing Central Asia. His broader research interests include the history of epidemics, vaccination, and medicine. One current project situates Xinjiang within the global history of the Third Plague Pandemic by analyzing a devastating outbreak of plague in Khotan between 1912 and 1917. A second line of research investigates Qing imperial expansion into the Lop Nur region in the late nineteenth century with particular attention to the resulting smallpox epidemics that decimated the region’s indigenous communities. Looking ahead, he plans to examine the introduction of Chinese medical professionals to Xinjiang during the Qing period and the subsequent interactions between Chinese medicine and Central Asian healing traditions.

Dissertations

1. “Imperial Enterprise and Forced Labor in Colonial Turpan, 1877-1911” (PhD Dissertation, Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University, 2024).

Journal Articles

1. “Musulman Knowledge, Local History, and the Making of the Qing Nation-State.” Late Imperial China 42.2 (2021): 91-135.
2. “Protecting the Musulman Children: Smallpox Epidemics, Chinese Medicine, and Vaccination Colonialism in Late Qing Turpan, 1880-1911.” The Journal of Asian Studies 83.1 (2024): 62-87.

Book Chapters

1. “Uyghur Military Conscription in Colonial East Turkestan, 1903-1906,” in Léo Maillet, Dilnur Reyhan, and Eric Schluessel, eds., Colonialism in East Turkestan: The Manchu, Russian and Chinese Colonization of Central Asia (2026, forthcoming).

Conference Papers

1. “Musulmans and Law Enforcement: Policing Reforms and Rural Justice New-Policy Era Turpan,” CESS 2021 Panel Presentation (online, 2021).
2. “The Xiang Army, Smallpox Vaccination, and the Origins of Public Health in Late Qing Turpan, 1881-1911,” China and the World Conference, Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee, 2022).
3. “Vaccination in Qing Colonial East Turkestan,” AAS 2022 Panel Presentation (online, 2022).
4. “Musulman Conscripts in Colonial East Turkestan,” International Uyghur Studies Conference (Geneva, Switzerland, 2022).
5. “Forced Labor in Late Qing Colonial East Turkestan, 1877-1911,” Central Eurasian Studies Society Conference 2023 (Pittsburgh, PA, 2023).
6. “The 1895 Dungan Uprisings: New Perspectives from the Turpan Archives,” Workshop at National Chengchi University (Taipei, Taiwan, 2023).
7. “The Prince: Turkic Muslim Elites and Enforcing Order in Colonial Turpan, 1877-1911,” Association of Asian Studies Conference 2024 (Seattle, WA, 2024).
8. “The Great Khotan Plague: Epidemics, Medicine, and the Birth of Public Health in Early Republican Xinjiang, 1912-1920,” SEUSS-FLIC Conference at UNC, Charlotte (Charlotte, NC, 2025).
9. “Abandoned by the Empire: Han Soldiers and Demobilization in Postwar Xinjiang, 1877-1890,” Association of Asian Studies Conference 2025 (Columbus, OH, 2025).
10. “殖民開墾、環境破壞與族群同化：以清末羅布淖爾地區為例 [Colonial Land Reclamation, Environmental Destruction, and Ethnic Assimilation: The Case of Late Qing Lop Nur],” Academia Sinica, International Conference on Ming-Qing Studies (Taipei, Taiwan,2025).

Education：
Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University, USA

Current and Previous Positions：
2026.3- , Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
2025-2026, Postdoctoral Fellow, The Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
2024-2025, Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, The Johns Hopkins University, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences

1. 2018, Johns Hopkins University East Asian Studies Grant
2. 2019, Mellon Foundation Summer Travel Award
3. 2019-2020, Blakemore Freeman Fellowship for Chinese Language Study
4. 2021, CESSI Title VIII Fellowship for Advanced Uyghur Language Studies
5. 2022, Center for Chinese Studies Research Grant for Foreign Scholars in Chinese Studies
6. 2023, Johns Hopkins Dean's Teaching Fellowship
7. 2024, Doris G. Quinn Foundation Dissertation Write-up Fellowship