Yidi Wu
O'Briant Developing Professor and Associate Professor of History
Department: History and Geography
Email: ywu3@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-6421
Professional Expertise
Brief Biography
News & Notes
Education
BA - Oberlin College
MA, PhD - University of California, Irvine
Employment History
Elon University, 2020- present
Saint Mary's College, Indiana 2017-2020
Courses Taught
History in Twentieth-Century World
Modern East Asia through Games
Modern Chinese History
Research Methods
Senior Research Seminar
Argentine Tango
The Global Experience
Leadership Positions
director, PRC History Review, 2021- present
book review editor, PRC History Review, 2018-2024
Current Projects
I'm working on my first research monograph on student activism and campus politics in 1950s' China. I conducted archival research and oral history interviews during my dissertation fieldwork across China, as well as summer research trips in China. I am collaborating with Duke University Library to digitize my oral history collection.
Using the Reacting to the Past (https://reacting.barnard.edu/) pedagogy, I'm designing a game based on the 1989 Tiananmen Protests, especially the dialogues between student activists and government officials. I have invited students to create role sheets for historical characters, and test played the game in class.
My second book project focuses on the transformation of Chinese higher education from liberal arts to technocratic training in the early 1950s.
Grants Awarded
2026-28, CATL Scholar Award
2025, Artz Summer Scholar, Oberlin College
2023-27, O'Briant Developing Professorship
2023, Elon Faculty Summer Research Fellowship
2021-23, Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Academy of Education
Publications
2022, "Reacting to the Past: Teaching Asian and World History through Role-Playing Games," Education About Asia, vol. 27:1 (Spring 2022).
2021, “The Secret Police, A Funeral, and Lunch Gatherings: My Story of Doing Oral History Interviews in China,” Special Issue: PRC History in the Era of COVID, Censorship, and Sino-US Confrontation, PRC History Review, volume 6, number 3, http://prchistory.org/issue_6_3/
2021, published under pseudonym You Xi, “Role-Playing Game: The Quandary of Muslim Minorities in Xinjiang,” Xinjiang Documentation Project, University of British Columbia, https://xinjiang.sppga.ubc.ca/teaching/syllabi-and-teaching-plans/
2021, Review of A Century of Student Movements in China: The Mountain Movers (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington, 2020), Twentieth-Century China, volume 46, number 1, E-5 – E-6.
2021, Review of Creating the Intellectual: Chinese Communism and the Rise of a Classification (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), The China Journal, volume 85, 229-231.
2020, “Performing Loyalty: Classification of College Students in the Anti-Rightist Campaign,” in Timothy Cheek ed., Special Issue “60 Years Later: New Scholarship on the 1957 Anti-Rightist Campaign,” Twentieth-Century China, vol. 45, no. 2.
2020, Review of Defining a Nation: India on the Eve of Independence, 1945 (New York: W. W. Norton, 2017), American Historical Review, volume 125, issue 1, 156–158.
2019, Review of The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (Columbia University Press, 2016), Journal of Asian Studies, volume 78, issue 2, 442-444.
2019, Co-author with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “The Russian Revolution through Chinese Eyes, 1917-2017,” in Choi Chatterjee et al. eds., Wider Arc of Revolution. Volume 2. Bloomington: Slavica Press of Indiana University.
2017, Co-author with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “Airbrushing History.” Index on Censorship, vol. 46, issue 2, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0306422017716018
2016, “Should I Stay or Should I Go? A ChinaFile Conversation.” ChinaFile, http://www.chinafile.com/conversation/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go
2016, “Chinese Documentaries.” In Popular Culture in Asia and Oceania, edited by Kathy Nadeau and Jeremy Murray. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
2015, “Yan’an’s Iron Bodhisattva: Hunting Spies in the Rectification Movement.” In 1943: China at the Crossroads, edited by Matt Combs and Joseph Esherick, 203-241. Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series.
2015, Co-author with Jeffrey Wasserstrom. “You Say You Want a Revolution: Revolutionary and Reformist Scripts in China, 1898-2012.” In Scripting Revolution: A Historical Approach to the Comparative Study of Revolutions, edited by Keith Baker and Dan Edelstein, 231-250. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
2014, Co-author with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “1989 People's Movement.” In Oxford Bibliographies in Chinese Studies, edited by Tim Wright. New York: Oxford University Press, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199920082/obo-9780199920082-0097.xml?rskey=lSUAmf&result=1
Presentations
2024, “Contingent Pasts: Creating Role-Playing Games on Modern China,” Historical Society of Twentieth-Century China (HSTCC) Conference, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
2024, “Teaching Asia through Role-Playing Games,” ASIANetwork Annual Conference, Atlanta, Georgia
2024, “Addressing Challenges and Opportunities in Teaching PRC History,” Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (SEC/AAS), Winston-Salem, North Carolina
2024, “Breadth, Depth, or Both? Teaching Surveys on China, East Asia, and World History,” American Historical Association (AHA) Annual Conference, San Francisco, California
2023, “Socialist Democracy at Stake: Voices from Disunited Front, 1957,” Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference, Boston, Massachusetts
2023, “Teaching Contentious China in Polarized American Universities,” sponsored panel by the Chinese Historians of the United States, AHA annual conference, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2022, “Teaching Asian and World History through Role-Playing Games,” AAS Annual Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii
2021, “Democracy Torch Relay: Campus Alliance and Divergence in Political Campaigns of 1957,” SEC/AAS, virtual conference
2021, “Documenting Legitimacy: Contesting Narrative of the 1949 Divide in an Anti-Rightist Film, 1957,” HSTCC Conference, 2021, virtual conference
2021, “Documenting Legitimacy: Contesting Narrative of the 1949 Divide in an Anti-Rightist Film, 1957,” ASIANetwork Annual Conference, Columbus, Ohio, 2021, virtual conference
Professional Activities
2024, podcast interview, Lights, Camera, Media: An Exploration of U.S. and Chinese News Coverage, episode one: “A Professor’s View of Chinese and U.S. Media and News Coverage,” https://open.spotify.com/show/4vaN3U7pK63XIvglyZK4Jd
2023-2024, consultant, AM Primary Source Reimagined, China on Film Collection, https://www.amdigital.co.uk/
2024, manuscript reviewer, Twentieth-Century China.
2021, 2017, manuscript reviewer, Modern China.
Personal Information
Beyond my academic life as a China historian, I'm an avid Argentine tango dancer, and I travel around the world for tango marathons and festivals.
I'm also a cat lover, and currently I have two tabbies - Georgi and Gabbie.