2015

Mark Frank

  • Doctoral Student
  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Picture of Mark Frank

Program

Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in China Studies Predissertation-Summer Travel Grants

Project

The Rooted State: Materiality in the Making of Modern China's Xikang Province

Department

East Asian Languages and Cultures

Abstract

My project examines the role of material factors in the establishment and dissolution of Xikang Province (1939-1955), situated in present-day Western Sichuan at the foothills of the Tibetan Plateau. I focus on Xikang’s modern economic, legal and educational institutions, through which the abstract notion of the province as a political entity was rooted in the unique topography and economy of this region. My project aims not merely to chronicle the history of a single province, but to provide insight into how national modernization projects in general are influenced by material factors.