Max Oidtmann
Assistant Professor of Asian History
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, since August 2013
P.O. Box 23689
Doha, State of Qatar
[email protected]
EDUCATION
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
PhD, March 2014. History and East Asian Languages
Dissertation: “Between Patron and Priest: Amdo Tibet Under Qing Rule, 1791-1911.”
Advisor: Professor Mark C. Elliott
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
AM, 2007. Regional Studies East Asia
Awarded Joseph Fletcher Memorial Prize for excellence in AM thesis
Carleton College, Northfield, MN
BA, cum laude, 2001. Major: History, concentration in East Asian Studies
Departmental distinction with additional distinction for senior thesis
FELLOWSHIPS and AWARDS
Professeur Invités, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, France, May
Georgetown University Faculty Research Grants
Best Graduate Student Paper, Central Eurasian Studies Society
Harvard University Fairbank Center Summer Research Grant, China
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship, China
Harvard University Frederick Sheldon Traveling Scholar
China National Scholarship Council Exchange Program Fellowship
National Security Education Program David L. Boren Graduate Fellow, Xinjiang
FLAS Summer Language Grant Intro and Intermediate Uyghur at Indiana University
Freeman Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship, Mongolia and Kyrgyzstan
2015
2014, 2015
2012
2012
2010
2010
2010
2005
2004, 2005
2000
PUBLICATIONS
“A Case for Gelukpa Governance: A Historian of Labrang Monastery, Amdo, and the Manchu Rulers of China.”
In Greater Tibet: An Examination of Borders, Ethnic Boundaries, and Cultural Areas, edited by Paul Christiaan
Klieger, 111-148. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016.
“A Study of Qing Dynasty ‘Xiejia’ Rest Houses in Xunhua Subprefecture, Gansu,” coauthored with Yang
Hongwei. In Muslims in Amdo Tibetan Society: Multi-Disciplinary Approaches, edited by Paul Nietupski,
Bianca Horlemann, and Marie-Paule Hill, 21-46. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2015.
“Imperial Legacies and Revolutionary Legends: The Sibe Cavalry Company, the Eastern Turkestan Republic, and
Historical Memories in Xinjiang,” Saksaha: The Journal of Manchu Studies, 12 (November, 2014): 49-87.
Max Oidtmann
“A Document from Xunhua.” Chinese Legal Documents Series (International Society for Chinese Law and
History) 1, No. 1 (Nov. 2014) http://chineselawandhistory.com/blog/2014/10/23/chinese-legal-documents-series001/
CONFERENCE PAPERS and PRESENTATIONS (selected)
Upcoming: Organizer, The Qing Empire Revisited: A Research Colloquium to be held in conjunction with the 14th
Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies Annual Conference, Bergen Norway, June 2016.
Presenting, “The Entanglements of Reincarnation: the Qing Legal Order and Inter-monastic Conflicts in Amdo
during the Guangxu reign (1875-1908).”
Upcoming: “The Qing's Last Kūtuktu: Künga Gyeltsen and the Qing's Tibet Policies from the Tongzhi
Restoration to 1912.” Paper to be presented at International Manchu Studies Conference, University of
Michigan, May 2016.
“Politicizing Piety: Qing Legal Culture and its Ramifications for Tibetan Social History.” Invited talk, Columbia
University Modern China Seminar, September 24, 2015.
“Legal Pluralism in Qing Tibet and an Exemplary “Fan” Case from 1889.” Invited talk and document workshop,
College de France & École Haute Etudes Science Sociale (EHESS), Paris, May 2015.
“The ‘Warring States’ of Amdo: Qing Jurispractice and the Creation of the “Tibetan World, 1772-1911.”
Conference, Legalizing Space in China/Les lieux de la loi dans l’empire chinois, École Normale Supérieure de
Lyon, May 2015.
Organizer of panel, “Legal Politics in the Qing Colonial Territories.” Presented, “The ‘Warring States’ of Amdo:
Qing Jurispractice and the Creation of the "Tibetan World, 1772-1911.” Association for Asian Studies Annual
Meeting, Chicago, March 2015.
“Muslim Mediators, Tibetan Conflicts: Chinese Muslims and Colonial Legal Culture in Early Modern China.”
Invited talk, New York University Abu Dhabi, November 18, 2014.
“Shamanic Imperialism: The Qianlong Emperor’s Attack on Tibetan Divination Technologies and the Origins of
the Golden Urn.” Presented at American Association of Religion annual conference, Chicago, November 2012.
“Tibetan Buddhists and the Colonial Encounter in Late Qing Amdo,” Presented at Central Eurasian Studies
Society annual conference, Indiana University, October 2012. Received Award for Best Graduate Student Paper.
“The Nineteenth-Century Crisis of the Mongol Banners in Amdo.” Presented at American Council for Mongolian
Studies Conference, Ulanbaatar, June 2011.
“Intersection and Divergence: The Cagan Nomun Han Banner/Corporate Estate and Qing Colonial
Administration in Amdo.” Delivered at Association for Asian Studies annual conference, Honolulu, Hawaii,
April 2011.
“Qing Post-Pacification Reconstruction: Community Relations in the Sino-Tibetan-Muslim Borderlands, 18201880.” Presented at International Association for Tibetan Studies Conference, University of British Columbia,
Canada, August 2010.
“Memory, Revolution and the Sibe Cavalry Company, 1944-1949.” Delivered at
2
Max Oidtmann
International Manchu Studies Conference, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London,
February 2010.
BOOKS IN PROGRESS
Forging the Golden Urn: Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet, 1792-1911
This book describes the path by which a Chinese bureaucratic technology—a lottery for assigning administrative
posts, was exported to the Tibetan and Mongolian regions of the Qing Empire (1644-1912) and transformed into
a ritual for divining and authenticating the identity of reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist monks. My analysis of this
process sheds new light on the history of Qing empire-building in Asia and the influence of Qing colonial
practices on Tibetan culture and politics. Using previously un-examined Manchu and Tibetan-language sources,
this book redefines what imperial sovereignty meant to Tibetans and the reveals the role that Tibetan elites
themselves played in the production of a new, cosmopolitan Qing imperial culture.
Between Patron and Priest: Qing Legal Culture and the Creation of A “Tibetan World” in Amdo,
1720-1912.
The dispatch of Qing colonial magistrates to the Sino-Tibetan frontier in the mid-eighteenth century opened up
new forums for the pursuit of justice, an opportunity that the indigenous people of the region did not hesitate to
utilize. Qing magistrates and military officers served as the embodiment of a pluralistic legal order and the
indigenous insistence that they exercise “Tibetan” jurisprudence resulted in the creation of a distinctive body of
legal practices. The encounter between Qing officials and Tibetans in the course of legal proceedings shaped the
growth of monastic domains such as Labrang Monastery and played an essential role in consolidating a fractious
“Tibetan world.”
RESEARCH and TEACHING FIELDS at Georgetown University
Early Modern China and Inner Asia: social, political and intellectual history of the Ming and Qing Dynasties;
imperialism and colonialism in East Asia; Manchu and Chinese languages and archives
Modern China: Republic and PRC through Reform and Opening, particular emphasis on minority policies and
the experience of socialism in northwest China; contemporary news media and propaganda; the rural experience
and environmental issues.
Islam in China and Inner Asia: Xinjiang and Uyghur history and language; Muslim Chinese, Islam and
Confucianism, Sufism in China.
Tibetan Civilization: History of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism; intellectual and political history of the Sino-Tibetan
frontier; archival sources for Tibetan studies in northwest China.
Russia and Central Asia: History of Russian and Soviet nationalities policies, history of Central Asia, studies of
comparative empire.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Secretary, Manchu Studies Society, March 2015--.
3
Max Oidtmann
Georgetown Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS), Fellow, 2014-2015. Year-long
project to improving student writing in the discipline of history and assist colleagues in designing and
implementing writing-based learning strategies.
4