Graduate Student Bios

Yuntian (Chris) Xuan is a third-year PhD student from Shanghai, China. He earned his B.A. in History from Fudan University and an M.A. in Social Sciences–History from the University of Chicago, before coming to Rutgers. Working primarily with Professors Seth Koven and Julia Stephens, he is interested in the transnational lives of Chinese seamen who worked on British ships from the late 19th century to the 1970s, as well as the broader history of Chinese migration within the world of the British Empire. His research pays particular attention to the dockside world, the role of grassroots maritime labor contractors, issues surrounding seafaring intimacy and mixed-race children, as well as postwar Global South and decolonization from a perspective of maritime world.