Associate Research Fellow
Ph.D., History & East Asian Studies, Columbia University
History of Exchanges between Late Imperial China and Eurasia, History of Information, Technology, and Knowledge, Inner Asian History (Manchuria, Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang), Historical Philology of Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan
Ling-Wei Kung received his B.A. in History from National Taiwan University in 2012 and his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Studies from Columbia University in 2021. His research spans early modern China and Eurasian exchanges, the history of science and technology, global history, and the philological study of Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan sources. His doctoral dissertation, “The Great Convergence: Information Circulation, International Trade, and Knowledge Transmission Between Early Modern China, Inner Asia, and Eurasia,” examines the intelligence networks the Qing Empire established across Tibet, Mongolia, and Xinjiang. It investigates how these networks shaped the Qing court’s geographic understanding of the Russian, Ottoman, Mughal, Safavid, and Durrani empires, thereby facilitating information and knowledge exchanges between China and Eurasia.
Since joining the Institute, he has integrated approaches from imperial history, history of knowledge, and philology, employing multilingual sources in Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan, together with GIS and digital humanities tools, to explore cross-regional interactions and knowledge production between Ming–Qing China and Inner Asia. His research focuses on three major areas: (1) reconstructing Qing–Tibetan intelligence systems and religio-political relations to reveal how information asymmetry shaped frontier governance; (2) analyzing imperial expansion and the formation of geographic knowledge through the study of Central Asian geography and historical maps, demonstrating the co-constitution of territory and knowledge; and (3) advancing dialogue between Inner Asian and maritime histories by examining the role of the Manchu language as a medium of information circulation and cultural exchange across East Asia.
In future research, he aims to further deepen his study of Ming–Qing China and Eurasian interactions and extend his scope to the Mongol-Yuan period, focusing on the transmission of knowledge and information in medicine, technology, and material culture across Eurasia since the thirteenth century. From the perspective of Inner Asian history, he also explores how polities such as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Turks, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Khitans, and Jurchens influenced China’s political institutions, economic networks, and cultural transmission. By combining philological and digital-humanities methods, he seeks to reconstruct the dynamic interactions between Inner Asia and China in governance, trade, and knowledge transfer, and to establish a new global framework for Chinese history—one that situates China and Inner Asia as interrelated cores within world history.
He has published numerous articles in journals including the Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica and New History. More information and publications can be found at his website: https://lingweikung.com/.
Education:
Ph.D., History & East Asian Studies, Columbia University (2021)
M.Phil., History & East Asian Studies, Columbia University (2018)
M.A., History & East Asian Studies, Columbia University (2015)
B.A., History, National Taiwan University (2012)
Current Position:
2025.11.24– , Associate Research Fellow, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
Previous Positions:
2021.8–2025.11.23, Assistant Research Fellow, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
Visiting Scholar, Department of History, National University of Mongolia, 2025.7–2025.11
Visiting Scholar, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Peking University, 2025.3–2025.6
Visiting Scholar, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, 2024.10
Junior Visiting Scholar, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, 2019
Visiting Researcher, Social and Cultural Studies, Kyushu University, 2019
Guest Research Associate, Oriental History, Kyoto University, 2018–2019