Bio

My research focuses on the history of Maoism and modern China with particular interest in the emergence of Maoist-inspired Communist movements in Southeast Asia and Latin America. My forthcoming book, entitled Global Maoism: China’s Red Evangelism and the Communist Movement in Cambodia, 1949–1979, takes a genealogical approach to uncovering the processes whereby Maoism came into being, and the conditions and problems of its emergence in Cambodian intellectual circles. My second manuscript project examines how admirers of Maoist iconography identified a common historical inheritance with China when idealizing Third World futures. Items bearing Mao’s likeness, Mao-merobilia, embodied Chinese radical culture and visual imagery. I explore the history of collection in China, its link to the production and collection of Mao-merobilia, and trace the larger cultural imprint of Mao-era China across the Global South.