Professor Weston is on leave for the 2023-2024 academic year
Professor Weston focuses on history of modern China.
Professor Weston teaches courses on modern Chinese history, the intersecting histories of modern China and Japan, the history of Chinese – American relations, and the history of the propaganda state. He is particularly interested in the relationship between politics and culture, Asia in a global context, the development and role of the media, and the nature of state power. Some of the courses he offers include: "Introduction to Chinese History Since 1644," "Modernity in China and Japan," and "Propaganda States in the Modern World." Professor Weston also teaches courses in China for CU students.
Professor Weston graduated with a B.A. (Honors) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and an M.A. in East Asian History and Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History from the University of California, Berkelely. He published The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals and Chinese Political Culture, 1898-1927 (University of California Press, 2004) and is co-editor of a series of volumes on contemporary China: China Beyond the Headlines (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000); China’s Transformations: The Stories Beyond the Headlines (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007); and China In and Beyond the Headlines (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012). He is currently completing a book-length study of the rise of the newspaper press in China in the context of nineteenth-century Western imperialism. Professor Weston is the past President of the Historical Society for Twentieth-Century China, regularly speaks to the public and writes on modern China for the popular media, and is an alumnus of the Public Intellectuals Program run by the National Committee on U.S. - China Relations.
Professor Weston is accepting both M.A. and Ph.D. students.