David M. Barreda

Maura Elizabeth Cunningham is a writer and historian of modern China. She is a graduate of Saint Joseph’s University (B.A., 2004), Yale University (M.A., 2006), the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies (graduate certificate, 2008), and the University of California, Irvine (Ph.D., 2014), as well as Chinese language programs in Beijing and Hangzhou. She is now working on the manuscript for a book about children’s cartoonist Zhang Leping.

Cunningham was the Editor-in-Chief of The China Beat, a blog based at UC Irvine, between 2009 and 2012, and Associate Editor of ChinaFile during a fellowship at the Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations in 2011-2012. From 2014 to 2016, Maura served as a Program Officer at the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, where she co-directed the Public Intellectuals Program; in 2016, she became the Digital Media Manager at the Association for Asian Studies in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As a writer, her work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. She is the co-author (with Jeffrey Wasserstrom) of the third edition of China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, published by Oxford University Press in 2018.

Last Updated: August 7, 2018

Conversation

01.28.22

The Olympics Return to Beijing

Sam Crane, Maya Wang & more
In February Beijing will host the Olympic Games again, this time amid a surging pandemic, a new wave of lockdowns, at least 10 diplomatic boycotts, and international alarm at the disappearance of one of the country’s top athletes. “Together for a...

Conversation

06.21.21

Will I Return to China?

Scott Kennedy, Tracy Wen Liu & more
ChinaFile sent a short questionnaire to several hundred ChinaFile contributors to get a sense of their feelings about traveling to China once COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease. Media reports at the time had suggested, anecdotally, that foreigners...

Conversation

08.07.18

We’re a Long Way from 2008

Kate Merkel-Hess, Maura Cunningham & more
On August 8, 2008, China’s then Chairman Hu Jintao told a group of world leaders visiting Beijing to attend the Olympics that “the historic moment we have long awaited is arriving.” Indeed, awarding the Games to China in 2001 sparked a fierce debate...

Out of School

05.04.12

In the Journals: Journal of Asian Studies, February 2012

Maura Cunningham
The February 2012 issue of the Journal of Asian Studies opens with a trio of short articles exploring major trends in China-related publishing over the past decade. The essays, which differ widely in topic, are connected by a concern with how...

Out of School

03.26.12

Re-Reading: The Good Earth

Maura Cunningham
The Good Earth simultaneously manages to be both a classic and not very good. This is not, I trust, a controversial statement: Pearl Buck’s 1931 novel suffered a mixed reputation from the start. While many early readers hailed her work for its...

Out of School

02.29.12

A New China Website Helps Dissertations Find Readers

Maura Cunningham
Dissertations dominate the lives of doctoral students. A PhD candidate spends years researching, writing, and editing his or her dissertation, inching toward the day when the whole process is finished. Finally, he or she can leave behind the nagging...

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Maura Cunningham
09.10.15

Orientalism is generally understood as a bad thing. What the “Through the Looking Glass” exhibit designers attempted to do was reclaim Orientalism, demonstrating that Western designers might only have a superficial understanding of China, but that limited insight has been enough to inspire beautiful clothing.

Topics: Arts, History