Tim Sedo, PhD

Tim Sedo’s research focuses on the social, cultural, and environmental history of Late Imperial China and pays particular attention to the Ming period (1368-1644). His dissertation, entitled “Linzhang County and the Culturally Central Periphery in Mid-Ming China” offers a local history of a small county in China’s “Central Plains” region as a window into a variety of questions involving the region’s particular personnel history, hydraulic environment, and its “culturally central” historic lineage. He is currently developing two distinct research topics concerning the history of environmental statecraft in Late Imperial China. The first examines the historical meanings associated with China’s first fully historical hydro-bureaucrat, Ximen Bao and the various transmutations of his local cult. The second examines the history of preventative locust control techniques in the Ming and Qing periods and explores the global circulation of these ideas through early modern Jesuit networks.   Finally, owing to his many years spent skateboarding in China, Sedo has also developed a keen interest in the history of skateboarding, youth culture and urban space in Modern China and he continues to actively work and publish in this area.  Prior to coming to Concordia, Sedo taught a wide variety of courses on Premodern and Modern East Asian history at McGill University and at the University of British Columbia.

Education

B.A. University of Victoria, Ph.D. University of British Columbia

Recent publications

"Deadstock' Boards, 'Blown-out' Spots, and the Olympic Games: Global Twists and Local Turns in the Formation of China's Skateboarding Community," in Imre Szeman, Petra Rethmann and Walter Coleman, eds., Cultural Autonomy:  Frictions and Connections (Vancouver:  University of British Columbia Press, 2010).