Matthew David Johnson
Mears Cottage, 1213 6th Avenue, Grinnell IA, 50112
Tel: (+1)641-269-4477 | Fax: (+1)641-269-4733
[email protected]
https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=126170234
https://grinnell.academia.edu/MatthewJohnson
2014 2010 -
Chair, East Asian Studies, Grinnell College
Assistant Professor, History of East Asia, History Department, Grinnell College (tenure expected
Spring 2016)
2015 2014 2014 2013 2013 2011 2011 -
Consulting editor, communist film project (in development), Adam Matthew Digital
Co-founder, Asianists in Leadership
Co-founder and editor, The PRC History Review
Co-founder, director, and editor, The PRC History Group (prchistory.org, H-PRC)
Member, contributor network, Oxford Analytica
Member, National Committee on United States-China Relations
Member, editorial board, Journal of Chinese Cinemas
2013 - 2014
2012 - 2013
2008 - 2012
2008 - 2010
Academic Visitor, The University of Oxford China Centre
Chair (interim), Peace and Conflict Studies Program, Grinnell College
Affiliated Researcher, China’s War with Japan Programme, University of Oxford
Departmental Lecturer, History and Politics of Modern China, Faculty of History; Faculty
Member, Faculty of East Asian Studies, The Oriental Institute, University of Oxford
Associate Instructor, Department of History, University of California, San Diego
Staff Assistant, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
2006, 2008
1998 - 2000
Education
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
PhD, History, 2008
 Dissertation: “International and Wartime Origins of the Propaganda State: The Motion Picture in
China, 1897-1955”
 Committee: Joseph W. Esherick (chair), Paul G. Pickowicz (chair), Takashi Fujitani, Daniel
Widener, Yingjin Zhang
MPhil, History, 2003
 Major field: Modern Chinese History (directed by Joseph W. Esherick, Paul G. Pickowicz)
 First minor field: Pre-modern and Early Modern Chinese History (directed by Suzanne Cahill, R. Bin
Wong)
 Second minor field: Modern Japanese History (directed by Stefan Tanaka, Takashi Fujitani)
 Third minor field: Communications and Culture as a Social Force (directed by Gary Fields, Lisa
Yoneyama, Yingjin Zhang)
 Examined linguistic proficiencies: Modern Chinese, Qing Dynasty Documents, French
Peking University, Beijing, PRC
Advanced studies, Department of History, 2004-2005. Conducted archival research and interviewed
former film workers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Xi’an (supervised by Niu Dayong)
Inter-University Program, Tsinghua University, Beijing, PRC
Advanced study in reading of modern and classical Chinese texts, spoken Mandarin, Summer 2001,
Summer 2002, and academic year 2003-2004
CET Academic Programs, Capital Normal University Foreign Languages College, Beijing, PRC
Introductory coursework in Chinese language, Summer 1997
Harvard College, Cambridge, MA
BA cum laude, Social Studies, 1998
 Thesis: “Translating Tradition: Mao Tse-Tung, Confucianism, and the Political Ideology of the
Cultural Revolution” (advised by Timothy George)
 Focus fields: International Relations, Political Economy of Development
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 2
Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH
Fellowships and Awards
2015-2017, Innovation Fund Award (Pilot Project), Grinnell College, “Grinnell-in-China: A Digital History
Documentation Project”
 $56,960 awarded over two years for collaboration with librarians, archivists, instructional
technologists, and student researchers; course release; and conference addressing project results
and future impact. “This project is the first stage of creating a pedagogically directed collection of
materials related to the history of Grinnell College's engagement with China. Faculty, staff, and
students will collaborate to collect materials, transcribe and develop metadata, and exhibit materials
online.”
2014-2015, Research Grant, Committee for Support of Faculty Scholarship, Grinnell College, “Contemporary
Chinese History Online” (academic year and summer 2015)
2013-2014, Harris Faculty Fellowship, Grinnell College, for affiliation with University of Oxford China Centre
 Award based on triple-blind externally peer-reviewed research proposal, “An Elusive Frontier:
Geographies of Propaganda, State Cinema, and Social Control in China, 1897-1997”
2012-2013, Research Grant (x2), Committee for Support of Faculty Scholarship, Grinnell College
- China’s iGeneration Cinema: Filmmakers, Films, and Audiences in a New Media Age (academic
year 2012-2013)
- Republican China’s “Soft Power”: Cultural Internationalism and the League of Nations, 19311937 (summer 2013)
2011-2012, Research Grant (x2), Committee for Support of Faculty Scholarship, Grinnell College
- U.S. Policy toward East Asia during the Early Cold War (academic year 2011-2012)
- W.E.B. Du Bois in China (summer 2012)
2010-2011, Research Grant (x2), Committee for Support of Faculty Scholarship, Grinnell College
- Between Revolution and Reform: China at the Grassroots (academic year 2010-2011)
- Nationalist Internationalism: Pathways and Barriers to China-U.S. Exchange, 1949-1969
(summer 2011)
2010-2011, U.S.-China Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Southern California (declined)
2010, China and Inner Asia Council Grant (with Jeremy Brown, Simon Fraser University), Association of Asian
Studies
2009-2010, Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences Grant, (with Jeremy Brown, Simon Fraser
University), Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
2009, Certificate of Merit, Contemporary China Research Institute, Renmin University of China
2009, Invited Lecturer, Contemporary China Research Institute, Renmin University of China, Beijing, PRC
(summer)
2009, Nominee, British Academy Exchange Agreement with Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Visiting
Scholar, Institute of World History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, PRC
2008-2009, John Fell OUP Research Fund award, University of Oxford
2007-2008, Michael Ricks Modern Chinese History Graduate Fellowship, University of California, San Diego
2006-2007, Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Center for the Humanities, University of California, San Diego
2006, China and Inner Asia Council Grant, Association of Asian Studies
2005-2006, Graduate Research Travel Grant, Institute of International and Comparative Area Studies,
University of California, San Diego
2004-2005, U.S. Fulbright Student Fellow, China, Institute of International Education, U.S. Department of State,
for affiliation with Department of History, Peking University
2004-2005, Peking University Harvard-Yenching Fellowship for Advanced Chinese Studies, Harvard-Yenching
Institute (declined)
2003-2004, Pacific Rim Studies Fellowship, University of California, San Diego
2002, H. Stuart Hughes Prize for best graduate research paper, 2001-2002, Department of History, University
of California, San Diego
2001-2004, Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, History, U.S. Department of Education
2001, Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education
2000-2001, Regents Fellowship, University of California, San Diego
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 3
Other Distinctions
2015, Nominee, Hong Kong Research Grants Council, Humanities and Social Sciences Subject Panel
2015, Acceptance, Hive Global Leaders Program, http://www.hive.org/
2015, SuperProfessor, Faculty Row, http://facultyrow.com/profile/MatthewDJohnson
2015, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, “America’s China Dream and China’s
America Dream: 150 Years of Encounter” (declined)
2015, Nominee (Grinnell College), Andrew Carnegie Fellowship Program
2013, Nominee, Primary Source Award, Award for Teaching, Center for Research Libraries
2011, Nominee, National Committee on United States-China Relations
RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
Current Research
Major Projects
The Origins of China’s Propaganda State (book manuscript)
Grinnell-in-China: A Digital History Documentation Project (digital research and teaching pilot project)
Other Work in Progress (Working Titles)
“An Elusive Frontier: Shifting Spatial Contexts of Mass Culture in Twentieth-Century Shanghai” (working paper)
“Neoculturalism: Chinese Political Authority in Historical and International Context” (article)
“Maoist Foreign Policy and Black Internationalism” (article)
“Edgar Snow in China: Observing a ‘Foreign Friend’” (research paper)
“American Journalists in China during the Early Cold War” (article)
“Cultural Change in a Socialist City: Beijing, 1940s-1960s” (article)
Under Review
“Domestication, Patronage, Security, and Scale: Regulating Independent Media and Culture in Xi Jinping’s
China” (journal article)
“Securing Cultural Sovereignty: Emerging Trends in PRC State Responses to Independent Media” (journal
article)
“Chasing Images Amidst Clouds of War: New Visual Evidence for Republican-Era Frontier Mobilization and
Local Development,” in Brett Sheehan and Wen-hsin Yeh, eds., Chinese Experiences of Total War
(edited volume chapter)
Articles and Edited Volumes
“Regional Cultural Enterprises and Cultural Markets in Early Republican China: The Motion Picture as Case
Study,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, No, 16 (September 2015), URL:
https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/e-journal/articles/johnson.pdf
Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of High Socialism, co-edited with Jeremy Brown,
Harvard University Press, 2015
Visualizing Modern China: Image, History, and Memory, 1750-Present, co-edited with James A. Cook, Joshua
Goldstein, and Sigrid Schmalzer, Lexington Books – Rowman & Littlefield, 2014
 Includes companion website, http://www.visualizingmodernchina.org/
 Reprinted in paperback edition December 2015
China’s iGeneration: Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the Twenty-First Century, co-edited with Keith B.
Wagner, Kiki Tianqi Yu, and Luke Vulpiani, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014
 One of 28 university press and academic titles selected for Open Access publication via Knowledge
Unlatched “KU Pilot Collection.” (The Pilot Collection is supported by nearly 300 libraries in 24
countries.) PDF made available, discoverable, and accessible under Creative Commons license
and in cooperation with OAPEN, HathiTrust, and the British Library. URL:
http://collections.knowledgeunlatched.org/collection-availability-1/
 Nominee, Best Edited Collection Award, Society for Cinema and Media Studies
“From Peace to the Panthers: PRC Engagement with African-American Transnational Networks, 1949-1979,”
Past and Present, Vol. 218, Suppl. 8 (2013), 233-257
“The Science Education Film: Cinematizing Technocracy and Internationalizing Development,” Journal of
Chinese Cinemas special issue, “The Missing Period of PRC Cinema,” Vol. 5, No. 1 (2011), 31-53
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 4
“Propaganda and Sovereignty in Wartime China: Morale Operations and Psychological Warfare under the
OWI” Modern Asian Studies special issue, “China in World War II, 1937-1945: Experience, Memory,
and Legacy,” Vol. 45, No. 2 (2011), 303-344
“‘Journey to the Seat of War’: The International Exhibition of China in Early Cinema,” Journal of Chinese
Cinemas special issue, “Exhibiting Chinese Cinemas,” Vol. 3, No. 2 (2009), 109-122
“China’s Pre-1949 Film Industry: A View from the Northeast,” Chinese Business History Bulletin (2007), URL:
http://www.umassd.edu/cas/history/cbh/
Chapters
“Beneath the Propaganda State: Official and Unofficial Cultural Landscapes in Shanghai, 1949-1965,” in
Jeremy Brown and Matthew D. Johnson, eds., Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era
of High Socialism, Harvard University Press, 2015
“Cinema, Propaganda, and Audience in Mao’s China,” in James A. Cook, Matthew Johnson, and Sigrid
Schmalzer, eds., Visualizing Modern China: Image, History, and Memory, 1750-Present, Lexington
Books – Rowman & Littlefield, 2014
“Bringing the Transnational Back into Documentary Cinema: Wu Wenguang’s China Villagers Documentary
Project and the NGO Aesthetic,” in Matthew D. Johnson, Keith B. Wagner, Kiki Tianqi Yu, and Luke
Vulpiani, eds., China’s iGeneration: Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the Twenty-First Century,
Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014
“Interpreting ScreenSpaces at the Shanghai Expo and Beyond,” Jeesoon Hong with Matthew D. Johnson, in
Matthew D. Johnson, Keith B. Wagner, Kiki Tianqi Yu, and Luke Vulpiani, eds., China’s iGeneration:
Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the Twenty-First Century, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014
“New Paradigms of Public Service Policy, Regulation, and Reform in China’s Television Industry,” co-authored
with Yik-Chan Chin, in Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Jeanette Steemers, eds., Regaining the Initiative in
Public Service Media (RIPE@2011 Reader), Nordic Information Centre for Media and Communications
Research, 2012
 Paper selected by review committee as one of twenty best (roughly 10 percent of total) presented at
RIPE@2010 conference, London. RIPE (Re-visionary Interpretations of Public Enterprise)
“strengthens collaborations between academic researchers and public media managers, and
publishes papers of ‘strategic and theoretical importance’ as part of its bi-annual conference
proceedings.”
“Censorship and Propaganda,” in Yingjin Zhang, ed., A Companion to Chinese Cinema (The Blackwell
Companions to Modern Cinema), Blackwell Publishing, 2012
“‘A Scene Beyond Our Line of Sight’: Wu Wenguang and New Documentary Cinema’s Politics of
Independence,” in Paul G. Pickowicz and Yingjin Zhang, eds., From Underground to Independent:
Alternative Film Culture in Contemporary China, Rowman & Littlefield, 2006
Online Resources: Archives, Datasets. Journals, Listservs, and Websites
- Visualizing Mass Communications and State Institutions in Wartime China (1937-1945), interactive map
project, http://dasil.grinnell.edu/2015/12/visualizing-mass-communications-and-state-institutions-inwartime-china/
- Downloadable data: http://dasil.grinnell.edu/downloadable-data/
- The PRC History Review, open access publication http://prchistory.org/review/
- H-PRC, scholarly communication listserv, http://networks.h-net.org/h-prc
- prchistory.org, website, http://prchistory.org/
- Electronic journals archive, unofficial Chinese histories of the Mao years,
http://prchistory.org/electronic-journals-archive/
- Visualizing Modern China, website, http://www.visualizingmodernchina.org/
Special Issues
The PRC History Review special issue, Elizabeth J. Perry, Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition
(University of California Press, 2012), roundtable review with author commentary, Vol. 1, No. 2 (August
2015), URL: http://prchistory.org/review-aug-2015/
 Includes editor’s introduction, “Neoculturalist Perspectives on Communist Party Power and
Legitimacy in Elizabeth J. Perry’s Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition”
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 5
Journal of Chinese Cinemas special issue, “Sound and Music in Chinese Cinemas,” Vol. 7, No. 3 (2013), coedited with Jean Ma
Journal of Chinese Cinemas special issue, “Exhibiting Chinese Cinemas: Reconstructing Reception” Vol. 3, No.
2 (2009), co-edited with Paul G. Pickowicz
Reference Entries
“Confucianism” (1,200 words), “Cyber espionage” (1,500 words), “Geography of War: Asia, East” (2,500
words), “Korean Military Academies” (1,500 words), “Mongolia” (1,200 words), “Myanmar” (1,200
words), “Nanjing (1937)” (1,500 words), “National Defense Academy of Japan” (1,500 words), “North
Korea” (1,500 words) “Solomon Islands” 1,000 words), “Tajikistan” (1,000 words), The SAGE
Encyclopedia of War: Social Science Perspectives, ed. Paul I. Joseph, SAGE Publications, forthcoming
2016
“Anti-Japanese Military and Political College” (1,000 words), “Luo Ruiqing” (800 words), “Milton E. Miles” (800
words), “Red Army College” (300 words) and “Sino-American Cooperative Organization” (500 words),
in Xiaobing Li, ed., China at War: An Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2012
“Hu Die,” “Sun Daolin,” and “Xie Jin” (600 words each), in Linsun Cheng et al., eds., Berkshire Encyclopedia of
Modern China, Berkshire Publishing Group, 2009
Reviews
余敏玲，《形塑新人：中共宣傳與蘇聯經驗》（台北：中央研究院近代史研究所，2015）[Yu Miin-ling,
Shaping the New Man: CCP Propaganda and Soviet Experiences (Taibei: Academia Sinica Institute of
Modern History, 2015). Frontiers of History in China, forthcoming.
Andrew G. Walder, China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015.
Pacific Affairs, forthcoming
Masuda Hajimu, Cold War Crucible: The Korean Conflict and the Postwar World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2015. Asian Studies Review, forthcoming
Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2013. Journal of Asian Studies, forthcoming
S. C. M. Paine, The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Journal of
Military History, Vol. 79, No. 3 (July 2015)
Joshua A. Fogel, Maiden Voyage: The Senzaimaru and the Creation of Modern Sino-Japanese Relations.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. H-Diplo, February 2015, URL: https://networks.hnet.org/node/28443/reviews/61999/johnson-fogel-maiden-voyage-senzaimaru-and-creation-modernsino
Ying Zhu, Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television. New York: The New Press, 2012. Journal of
Asian Studies, Vol. 73, No. 4 (November 2014)
Çağdaş Üngör, Reaching the Distant Comrade: Chinese Communist Propaganda Abroad (1949-1976), Ph.D.
dissertation, State University of New York at Binghamton, 2009. Dissertation Reviews, URL:
http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/10312
Angilee Shah and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, eds., Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a FastChanging Land. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012. Twentieth-Century China, Vol. 39, No. 3
(October 2014)
The Revolutionary. Prod. Irv Drasnin, Lucy Ostrander, Don Sellers. 2012. Asian Educational Media Service,
Fall 2013, URL: http://www.aems.illinois.edu/publications/filmreviews/revolutionary.html
Chris Berry, Xinyu Lu, and Lisa Rofel, eds., The New Chinese Documentary Movement: For the Public Record.
Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC)
Resource Center Publications, November 2011, URL: http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/johnson.htm.
Zhang Yangwen, Hong Liu, and Michael Szonyi, The Cold War in Asia: The Battle for Hearts and Minds.
Leiden: Brill, 2010. H-Diplo Roundtable Review, March 14, 2011, URL: http://www.hnet.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XII-10.pdf
China Independent Documentary Film Archive (URL: http://www.cidfa.com/modules/index.php). American
Anthropologist, 122:3 (September 2010)
Richard Curt Kraus, The Party and the Arty in China: The New Politics of Culture. Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2004. Modern Chinese Literature and Culture (MCLC) Resource Center Publications, June
2008, URL: http://mclc.osu.edu/rc/pubs/reviews/johnson1.htm
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 6
Rey Chow, Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films. New York: Columbia University Press,
2007. The China Quarterly, 192 (December 2007)
Zhang Zhen, ed., The Urban Generation: Chinese Cinema and Society at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. The China Quarterly, 191 (September 2007)
Chris Berry and Mary Farquhar, China on Screen: Cinema and Nation. New York: Columbia University Press,
2006; Sheldon H. Lu and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, eds., Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Politics,
Poetics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006. The China Quarterly, 188 (December 2006)
Michael Berry, Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2005. The China Quarterly, 186 (June 2006)
Ying Zhu, Chinese Cinema during the Era of Reform: The Ingenuity of the System. Westport, CT: Praeger,
2003. Journal of Third World Studies, 22:2 (Fall 2005)
Laikwan Pang, Building a New China in Cinema: The Chinese Left-wing Cinema Movement, 1932-1937.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. The China Journal, 54 (July 2004)
Other Publications (selected)
“Propaganda and Propaganda Film,” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 10th Anniversary Special Issue, “New
Keywords in Chinese Cinema Studies,” forthcoming 2016
“The enduring themes of Chinese propaganda,” China Policy Institute Blog, May 5, 2015, URL:
https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/chinapolicyinstitute/2015/05/05/the-enduring-themes-of-chinesepropaganda/
“China plenum centralizes power in the name of law” (co-author), Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, November 4,
2014
“Insecurity prompts China’s hard line on foreign firms,” Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, August 27, 2014
“State secrecy shrouds risks for investors in China,” Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, June 11, 2014
“China’s slowing manufacturing endangers policy goals,” Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, April 11, 2014
Media
“Wartime Origins of China’s Propaganda State,” Hoover Institution, December 2013
- Soundcloud, https://soundcloud.com/hoover-institution/matthew-johnson-8-6-13
- Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ulbOBCVpfg,
Grinnell College news releases
- China’s iGeneration, https://www.grinnell.edu/news/chinas-igeneration
- Hoover Archives summer workshop, http://www.grinnell.edu/news/external/matthew-johnsonassistant-professor-history-revisits-china-hoover-archives-summer
INSTRUCTION AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Teaching and Research Supervision
Grinnell College, Grinnell, IA (2010 - )
 Courses: War and Peace: Conflict in the Modern World (first-year tutorial), Introduction to Historical
Inquiry: Confucian Civilization and Its Challengers (departmental gateway course), China’s
Revolutions (geographic region course), China’s Rise (geographic region course), Imperial
Collisions in the Asia-Pacific (geographic region course), The Cold War in Asia (geographic region
course), Propaganda! Political Communication and Persuasion in the Modern World (seminar),
Chimerica: The History of a Special Relationship (seminar)
 Independent Studies: “Advanced Study of the Korean War,” “Migration and Regionalization in Asia,”
“Mental Health Policy and Stigma in China”
 Mentored Advanced Projects: “Online Activism and Policy Making in China,” “Mapping Local Effects
of Globalization in China: 21st Century Migration Flows from Southeast Asia to Yunnan Province,”
“Searching for Liberal Arts Studenthood in Modern China: Citizenship and Activism at Yenching
University, 1918-1949”
 External Committee Member: Keisha Brown, “Representations of Blackness within Sino-American
Relations, 1949-1972,” PhD dissertation, University of Southern California
Renmin University of China, Beijing, PRC (summer 2009)

Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 7
Course: Culture and International Politics in Twentieth-Century Chinese History (awarded
“Certificate of Merit” by Contemporary China Research Institute, Renmin University of China)
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK (2008-2010)
 Courses: The Government and Politics of China (undergraduate, Department of Politics, Philosophy,
and Economics), China in War and Revolution, 1890-1949 (undergraduate, Department of History),
History and Historiography of Modern China (graduate seminar in History and Modern Chinese
Studies)
 Dissertation supervisions (undergraduate and graduate): available upon request
 Lectures in: Modern Chinese History, International Relations in the Era of Two World Wars, General
History (post-1941), Contemporary Chinese Politics and Society, International Relations, Research
Methods: People’s Republic of China (graduate seminar)
University of California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA (2006, 2008)
 Lecture Course: Twentieth-Century East Asia
Professional Development
Summer 2015, Concepts of Leadership workshop, Grinnell College
Summer 2015, Summer Institute on Digital Pedagogy, Digital Bridges for Humanistic Inquiry: A Grinnell
College/University of Iowa Partnership and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Summer 2013, “Maps and the Geospatial Revolution,” Coursera
Summer 2013, GIS workshop, Grinnell College
Spring 2013, American Studies concentration planning retreat, Grinnell College
Fall 2012, “Campus Connect,” FaCE (Faculty Career Enhancement) Project, Associated Colleges of the
Midwest and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Summer 2012, 4th Annual Summer Institute for Faculty in Peace Studies Program Development, Kroc Institute
for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Summer 2011, Writing Portfolio Project workshop, Grinnell College
Summer 2011, Developing Inquiry-Based Course Materials workshop, Grinnell College
OTHER PROFESSIONAL AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT, 2008 - present
Invited Papers and Presentations
“Getting Down and Dirty?: New Trends in PRC State Responses to Independent Media,” Tulane University,
April 2015
“New Political Culture as Paradigm in PRC History,” for The Chan Workshop on the New History of the
People’s Republic of China, Occidental College, February 2015
“Cultural Industries and Cultural Markets in Republican China: The Motion Picture as Case Study,” for
Volkswagen Group-funded workshop “Rethinking Business History in Modern China,” Institute of
Chinese Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Hannover, June 2014
“Chinese Media and Propaganda During and After the Cold War,” Dissolution of Japanese Empire Research
Group, University of Cambridge, June 2014
“The Wartime Origins of China’s Propaganda State,” Institute for Chinese Studies & Contemporary China
Studies Programme China Studies Seminar Series, University of Oxford, May 2014
“Interpreting China Through Propaganda: A History of Media-Watching During and After the Cold War,” Lau
China Institute, King’s College, London, March 2014
“Cultural Institutions and Cultural Governance in Twentieth-Century China,” British empire and modern China
graduate seminar, University of Bristol, February 2014
“Proletarian Vaudeville in Pre-War 1930s Shanghai Cinema,” Department of East Asian Languages and
Cultures, Columbia University, December 2013
“Geographies of Official and Unofficial Culture in Maoist China: Big Claims based on Local Case Studies,” for
conference “Learning from Big Brothers: What Soviet and Central European Histories of Everyday Life
May Teach Historians of the Mao Era,” University of Oxford, September 2013
“The Wartime Origins of China’s Propaganda State,” for workshop “Revisiting Modern China at the Hoover
Archives,” Hoover Institute, Stanford University, August 2013
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 8
“Assessing the Impact of the ‘Great Movement to Resist America and Aid Korea’ on Audiovisual
Communications Networks in New China,” for Ford Foundation-funded workshop, “Sino-U.S. Relations
in Cold War Years: Historical Narrative, Literary Imagery, and Political Prospect,” Washington
University in St. Louis and Fudan University, Fudan University Center for American Studies, June 2013
“Grassroots Patterns of Local and Mass Culture in Contemporary China,” East China Normal University –
Harvard – Berkeley Advanced Research Workshop on Contemporary Chinese History, East China
Normal University, Shanghai, May - June 2012
“Mass Culture in Maoist China: Archival Perspectives and Methodological Challenges,” East Asia:
Transregional Histories Workshop (co-sponsored with Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop),
University of Chicago, October 2011
“Institutionalizing and Organizing Mass Culture in Post-Revolutionary Beijing,” Second International Scholarly
Conference on the History of Chinese Communist Party State Building (Chinese Society and Culture in
the 1950s), East China Normal University, June 2011
“China’s Transnational ‘Cinema of Improvement’: Documenting Village Governance, Past and Present,” for
conference “New Generation Chinese Cinema: Commodities of Exchange,” King’s College, London,
May 2011
“Propaganda in Twentieth-Century China: Perspectives from the War of Resistance,” Center for Asian and
Pacific Studies, University of Iowa, March 2011
“Nationalist Internationalism: Patterns of Unofficial PRC-US Contact, 1949-1968,” for Past and Presentsponsored conference “Transnationalism and Contemporary Global History,” Queen’s College,
University of Oxford, September 2010
“Soft Power: Perspectives on the History of an Idea,” research presentation and discussion (Chineselanguage), Institute of World History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, July 2009
“Containing Globalization: State Ownership, Censorship, and Media Consumption in the People’s Republic of
China,” for conference “Consumer Revolution or Consuming Revolution: Making Sense of Consumer
Culture in China,” Contemporary China Studies Programme, University of Oxford, September 2009
“Celluloid Revolutions: International Political Communication and National Image-Making in Historical Context,”
China Research Seminar, Institute for Chinese Studies, University of Oxford, May 2009
Other Invited Professional Participation
Guest and commentator, “Fighting Fate: Wartime Society and the Making of Modern China, 1937-1945,” Wiles
Lectures (Professor Rana Mitter), Queen’s University Belfast, May 2014
Discussant, “New Perspectives on China’s Propaganda State,” Association for Asian Studies Annual
Conference, March 2013
Discussant, “Trends on the Move – Transcultural Dimensions of Popular Flows” conference, Karl-Jaspers
Center for Advanced Transcultural Studies at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, October 2011
Discussant, “Networks in Chinese Society” workshop, Pembroke College, University of Oxford, April 2010
Discussant, “Human-Machines, Mechanized Modernity, and Mass Subjectivity” workshop, University of Oxford,
June 2009.
Other Papers Presented (selected)
“Convenient Optimists: American Political Travelers in the Eyes of the PRC Foreign Policy Establishment,” for
panel “African Americans and Maoist China,” American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January
2015
“Assessing the Impact of the ‘Great Movement to Resist American and Aid Korea’ on Media and Mobilization in
New China,” for panel “Media Producers and the State During the Maoist Era: Control or
Compromise?,” Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 2014
“Convenient Optimists: American Political Travelers in the Eyes of the PRC Foreign Policy Establishment,” for
panel, “Agents of Influence: Alternative Diplomacies and Political Travelers in the Cold War Era,”
Society for the History of American Foreign Relations Annual Meeting, June 2013
“Networked East Asia: A Concept and Pedagogy for 21st Century Area Studies,” for panel “Introducing ‘China
and the World’: New Classroom and Collaborative Approaches,” ASIANetwork Annual Conference,
March 2012
“Shanghai Among Equals: Comparative Chronologies of Early East Asian Cinema,” for panel “Chinese SilentEra Filmmaking,” Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 2011
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 9
“Pedagogies of Progress: National and International Development in the Career of Audiovisual Educator Sun
Mingjing, 1927-1952,” for conference “Wartime Economy and Culture in Chinese Daily Life, 19371949,” University of California, Berkeley, November 2009
“Social and Institutional Histories of Cultural Reform: China, 1949-1960,” for panel “Unity through Dissent:
Reconciling Paradoxical Visions of the Post-Revolutionary People’s Republic of China,” Annual Meeting
of the Association for Asian Studies, March 2009
Conference, Workshop, and Event Organization
Film screening, director talk, and library event, Xu Xing (independent writer), Grinnell College, November 2015
CHINA Town Hall (Cedar Rapids, IA and Des Moines, IA), National Committee on United States-China
Relations, October 2015
Roundtable, “The Future of Higher Education: Perspectives from Asianists,” Annual Meeting of the Association
for Asian Studies, March 2015
CHINA Town Hall (Cedar Rapids, IA and Des Moines, IA), National Committee on United States-China
Relations, October 2014
Musical performance, Prof. Hu Meiling (Minzu University of China), Grinnell College, September 2014
Faculty workshop, Understanding Korea for Professional Development, Grinnell College, August 2014
Inaugural meeting, Asianists in Leadership, Association of Asian Studies, March 2014
CHINA Town Hall (Grinnell, IA), National Committee on United States-China Relations, October 2012
Film screening and director talk, “When the Bough Breaks” (dir. Ji Dan), Grinnell College, February 2012
Conference, “New Generation Chinese Cinema: Commodities of Exchange,” King’s College, London, May
2011
Conference, “The Long Arc of Sino-Japanese Relations: Chinese Perspectives on War, Cooperation, and
Conflict Across Three Eras,” University of Oxford, June 2010
Workshop, “Between Revolution and Reform: China at the Grassroots, 1960-1980,” Simon Fraser University,
May 2010
Working group, “History/Media/Politics,” Leverhulme China’s War with Japan Programme, University of Oxford,
January 2009 - June 2010
Workshop, “Exhibiting Chinese Cinemas in the World,” University of California-San Diego, August 2008
Professional Service (external)
Consulting editor, communist film project (in development), Adam Matthew Digital
Co-founder, Asianists in Leadership
Co-founder, director, and editor, The PRC History Group, H-PRC, The PRC History Review
Proposal evaluator, The Research Grants Council of Hong Kong
Proposal evaluator, Bloomsbury Publishers
Reviewer, Palgrave (Scholarly and Reference – History)
Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Chinese Cinemas
Referee and reviewer, American Anthropologist, Asian Educational Media Service, Asian Studies Review, The
China Quarterly, Chinese Journal of International Politics, European Journal of East Asian Studies,
Frontiers of History in China, H-Diplo, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Journal of Chinese
Cinemas, Journal of Cold War Studies, Journal of Contemporary History, Journal of Social History,
Modern Asian Studies, Modern China, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center,
Twentieth Century China
Professional Service (Grinnell College)
International studies and policy network project, 2015 Carnegie Junior Fellows Nomination Selection Committee, 2015 Search committee, three-year position in Japanese, 2015 Global Development Studies Committee, 2013 Campus advisor, Critical Language Scholarship Program, 2013 Faculty advisor, off-campus study (Republic of Korea), 2012 Academic advisor, East Asian Studies concentration, 2012 Academic advisor, History Department, 2011 East Asian Studies Committee, 2010 -
Curriculum Vitae, Matthew David Johnson, 10
Innovation Fund-supported project, Summer Program in Korea, 2013-2014
Search committee, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Grinnell College, 2013-2014
American Studies Committee, 2012-2014
Peace and Conflict Studies Program Committee, 2011-2014
Search chair, non-Western/East Asian history term replacement, 2012-2013
Co-coordinator, Early Career Faculty Group, 2012-2013
Chair, Honors and Prizes Committee, History Department, 2012-2013
Academic advisor, First-Year Tutorial Program, 2012-2013
Off-Campus Study Committee, 2011-2012
Center for International Studies Advisory Board, 2011-2012
Reviewer, Young Innovator for Social Justice Prize, 2010-2011
Interviewer, Bowen Prize, 2010-2011
Professional Affiliations (current and former)
American Historical Association
American Political Science Association
ASIANetwork
Asianists in Leadership
Association for Asian Studies
Chinese Historians in the United States
Council on Undergraduate Research
The Good Judgment Project
Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China
International Exchange Alumni
International Studies Association
The PRC History Group
Society for Cinema and Media Studies
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations
Society for Organizational Learning