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Dr. Isabella Jackson

Assistant Professor (History)
ARTS BUILDING

 jacksoni@tcd.ie

 3531896 3166


Biography

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 am Principal Investigator on an Irish Research Council Laureate Award, CHINACHILD: Slave-girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-century China. Together with a team of researchers, I am researching how controversies over keeping unpaid domestic servants (binü 婢女 or mui tsai) reflect changing and expanding conceptions of Chinese childhood. My previous publications focus 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.

Research Tags

  Chinese History   Imperial and colonial history   Urban History

Research Projects

 CHINACHILD: Slave-girls and the Discovery of Female Childhood in Twentieth-century China

Languages

Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
Chinese Medium Medium Medium
English Fluent Fluent Fluent

Memberships

Membership of Professional Institutions, Associations, Societies

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
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
Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson, Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, 1, London, Routledge, 2016, 1 - 320pp, Book, PUBLISHED  URL
The Shanghai Scottish: Scottish, Imperial and Local Identities, 1914-41 in, editor(s)T. M. Devine and Angela McCarthy , The Scottish Experience in Asia, c.1700 to the Present: Settlers and Sojourners, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp235 - 257, [Isabella Jackson], Notes: [Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Habitability in the Treaty Ports: Shanghai and Tianjin in, editor(s)Toby Lincoln and Xu Tao , The Habitable City in China: Urban History in the Twentieth Century , New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp169 - 191, [Isabella Jackson], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  URL
Who ran the treaty ports? A study of the Shanghai Municipal Council in, editor(s)Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson , Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, London, Routledge, 2016, pp43 - 60, [Isabella Jackson], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Introduction in, editor(s)Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson , Treaty Ports in Modern China: Law, Land and Power, London, Routledge, 2016, pp1 - 22, [Robert Bickers and Isabella Jackson], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Expansion and defence in the International Settlment at Shanghai in, editor(s)Robert Bickers and Jonathan J. Howlett , Britain and China, 1840-1970, London, Routledge, 2015, pp187 - 204, [Isabella Jackson], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Isabella Jackson (杰逸), 南京路上的影印统治：条约口岸上海的锡克巡捕 Nanjing Lu shang de Ying-Yin tongzhi: tiaoyue kou'an Shanghai de Xike xunbu ('The Raj on Nanjing Road: Sikh Policemen in Treaty-Port Shanghai'), 上海市国际论丛Shanghai shi guoji luncong (International Review of Shanghai History), 2, 2015, p63 - 92, Notes: [Translation of article in Modern Asian Studies (2012)], Journal Article, PUBLISHED
  

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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
Isabella Jackson, Review of Shanghai Sanctuary: Chinese and Japanese Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II, by Gao Bei , Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , 7, (2), 2014, p422-3 , Review, PUBLISHED
Isabella Jackson, Review of The New Asian City, by Jimi Kim Watson , Urban History, 39, (4), 2012, p689-90 , Review, PUBLISHED

  

Awards and Honours

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

Research Interests

Description Of Research Interests

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) examines changing conceptions of Chinese childhood in the twentieth century, particularly during the Republican era (1912-1949). As PI, I reveal what understanding experiences of and changing responses to child slavery reveal about conceptions of childhood and girlhood. My earlier 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.