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Dr. Isabella Jackson

Assistant Professor (History)
ARTS BUILDING
      
Profile Photo

Dr. Isabella Jackson

Assistant Professor (History)
ARTS BUILDING

 jacksoni@tcd.ie

 3531896 3166


I arrived at Trinity in 2015, after lecturing at the Universities of Aberdeen and Oxford and earning my PhD at the University of Bristol. I research the modern history of China and was Principal Investigator on an Irish Research Council Laureate Award, CHINACHILD: Slave-girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-century China. In addition to the modern history of Chinese childhood, my research focuses on the global and regional networks that shaped the treaty ports, which were opened to foreign traders by force in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
  Chinese History   Imperial and colonial history   Urban History
Project Title
 CHINACHILD: Slave-girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-century China
From
01 Sep 2018
To
31 Sep 2023
Summary
Funded by Irish Research Council Laureate Award IRCLA/2017/251, the CHINACHILD project explores changing conceptions of Chinese childhood in the twentieth century, focusing particularly on the Republican era (1912-1949). See https://chinachild.wordpress.com/ for more details.
Funding Agency
Irish Research Council
Programme
Laureate Award
Person Months
48
Project Title
 Approaches to Breastfeeding and Infant Feeding from late imperial China to Mao's People's Republic
From
19/12/2025
To
18/12/2027
Summary
Funding Agency
Enterprise Ireland
Programme
Coordination Support - ERC
Person Months
24
Project Title
 RE-CARE Re-thinking care through China and Eastern Europe comparisons
From
To
Summary
Funding Agency
ERC
Programme
Marie Sk"odowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges
Project Type
Marie Sk"odowska-Curie Actions Staff Exchanges
Project Title
 Chinese Childhood History Visiting Fellowship
From
21/06/2018
To
21/12/2018
Summary
Funding Agency
British Academy
Programme
British Academy Visiting Fellowship
Project Type
Visiting Fellowship
Person Months
6
Project Title
 Debating Chinese Child Slavery: Child Protection in 1930s Shanghai
From
To
Summary
Funding Agency
Royal Irish Academy
Programme
Charlemont Grant

Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
Chinese Medium Medium Medium
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
Details Date From Date To
Association for Asian Studies 2012
Irish Association for Asian Studies 2016
British Association for Chinese Studies 2009
Universities' China Committee in London 2013 2015
Cultural and Social History, 23, 1, (2026), 1 - 149p, Isabella Jackson, Brodie Waddell, Grace Huxford, [Editor], 2024-, Journal, PUBLISHED  URL
Isabella Jackson and Yushu Geng, Rethinking Childhood in Modern Chinese History, 1, London, Routledge, 2025, 1 - 300pp, Book, PUBLISHED  DOI
`My Father Sold me as a Maid": When binü ("", `maidservants" or `slave-girls") spoke up in Republican China in, editor(s)Isabella Jackson and Yushu Geng , Rethinking Childhood in Modern Chinese History, Routledge, 2025, pp199 - 214, [Isabella Jackson], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  DOI
Cultural and Social History, 22, 5, (2025), 607 - 741p, Isabella Jackson, Brodie Waddell, Grace Huxford, [Editor], 2024-, Journal, PUBLISHED  URL
Cultural and Social History, 22, 3, (2025), 299 - 445p, Isabella Jackson, Brodie Waddell, Grace Huxford, [Editor], 2024-, Journal, PUBLISHED  URL
Cultural and Social History, 22, 2, (2025), 167 - 298p, Isabella Jackson, Brodie Waddell, Grace Huxford, [Editor], 2024-, Journal, PUBLISHED  URL
Cultural and Social History, 22, 1, (2025), 1 - 166p, Isabella Jackson, Brodie Waddell, Grace Huxford, [Editor], 2024-, Journal, PUBLISHED  URL
Isabella Jackson and Siyi Du, The Impact of History Textbooks on Young Chinese People's Understanding of the Past: A Social Media Analysis, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 2022, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI
Isabella Jackson, Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China's Global City, paperback, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 1 - 274pp, Book, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China's Global City, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2018, 1 - 274pp, Notes: [http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/east-asian-history/shaping-modern-shanghai-colonialism-chinas-global-city?format=HB#IFoQd8o5JwlLFDGy.97], Book, PUBLISHED  URL  URL
  

Page 1 of 2
Isabella Jackson, Siyi Du, CHINACHILD Voices of enslaved Chinese girls 1912-1949, Trinity College Dublin, 2025, Dataset, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Dreaming the New Woman: An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China, by Jennifer Bond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024; pp. 296. £59)., Review of Dreaming the New Woman: An Oral History of Missionary Schoolgirls in Republican China, by Jennifer Bond , English Historical Review, 2025, Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Review of The Global in the Local: A Century of War, Commerce, and Technology in China, by Xin Zhang , American Historical Review, 130, (2), 2025, p879-880 , Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Review of An Urban History of China, by Toby Lincoln , Urban History, 50, (3), 2023, p613-615 , Notes: [doi: 10.1017/S0963926823000305], Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Navigating Semi-Colonialism: Shipping, Sovereignty, and Nation-Building in China, 1860"1937 by Anne Reinhardt, Review of Navigating Semi-Colonialism: Shipping, Sovereignty, and Nation-Building in China, 1860"1937 , by Anne Reinhardt , English Historical Review, 135, (578), 2021, p224-226 , Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Improvised City: Architecture and Governance in Shanghai, 1843"1937 by Cole Roskam, Review of Improvised City: Architecture and Governance in Shanghai, 1843"1937 , by Cole Roskam , The China Quarterly , (241), 2020, p286-288 , Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Sold People: Traffickers and Family Life in North China. By Johanna S. Ransmeier , Review of Sold People: Traffickers and Family Life in North China, by Johanna S. Ransmeier , Journal of Asian Studies, 77, (1), 2018, p241-242 , Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Grace, Opium and Empire: The Lives and Careers of William Jardine and James Matheson, Review of Opium and Empire: The Lives and Careers of William Jardine and James Matheson, by Richard Grace , Scottish Historical Review, 96, (1), 2017, p132-33 , Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Review of Quest for Power: European imperialism and the making of Chinese statecraft, by Stephen R. Halsey , Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, 18, (3), 2017, Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Review of China's Foreign Places: The Foreign Presence in China in the Treaty Port Era, 1840-1943 , by Robert Nield , China Quarterly, 225, 2016, p279-81 , Review, PUBLISHED

  


Page 1 of 2
Award Date
IRC Laureate Award 2018
Royal Irish Academy Charlemont Grant 2016
Grace Lawless Lee Fund award 2017
Grace Lawless Lee Fund award 2016
Carnegie Trust Research Incentive Grant (returned due to leaving Scotland) 2015
British Inter-university China Centre AHRC award of £10,000 to lead the Chinese Urban Studies Network 2012-14
Excellence in Teaching Award, University of Aberdeen - nominated 2015
Annual Faculty Prize for Best Dissertation in the Arts 2012
Library of Congress AHRC/ESRC Scholarship 2011
Worldwide Universities Network Award 2010
Paula Sandri Prize in Recognition of Innovative and Original Research 2009
British Inter-university China Centre ESRC full 2+3 scholarship 2006-2011
British Association of Chinese Studies Scholarship for Chinese Language Study at the Mandarin Training Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 2008
Award for Excellence in Research Student Supervision - nominated/shortlisted 2024
I research the modern history of China with two main areas of interest: the history of Chinese childhood and the history of foreign colonialism in China. My Irish Research Council Laureate Award 'CHINACHILD: Slave-Girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-Century China' (2018-2023, €400,000) examined changing conceptions of Chinese childhood in the twentieth century, particularly during the Republican era (1912-1949). As PI, I explored what understanding experiences of and changing responses to child slavery reveal about conceptions of childhood and girlhood. My other work focuses on the global and regional networks that shaped the treaty ports, which were opened to foreign traders by force in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My monograph, 'Shaping Modern Shanghai: Colonialism in China's Global City' (Cambridge University Press, 2018) revealed the transnational form of colonialism in practice in Shanghai's International Settlement (1863-1943) and how it functioned on the ground in the Shanghai Municipal Council. My co-edited volume, 'Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power' (Routledge, 2016), explored the various structures of power in the different treaty ports along China's coast and waterways. I have also worked on the interconnections between China and the British World, especially India, through my work on the Sikh policemen who worked in Shanghai, and have an ongoing interest in the Chinese and foreign experience of the Opium War.