Dongming Wu received his BA in Chinese Literature (2008) and MA in Comparative Literature (2011) from Sichuan University, and his MA (2015) and PhD (2022) in History from Columbia University. His research interests include economic history, history of science and technology, and intellectual history in early China.
His dissertation, titled “The Bronze Economy and the Making of the Southern Borderlands in the Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BCE),” examines the connections between resource, technology, and power in early Chinese societies. It demonstrates how the production, exchange, and consumption of bronze, a strategic resource in Bronze Age China, transformed the social landscape of southern China in the Zhou dynasty. This research project utilizes diverse types of data and multidisciplinary approaches, including GIS, statistical analysis, and archaeometallurgy, to systematically study the political economy centered on bronze in late Bronze Age China.
At ISAW, Dongming will expand his focus from the southern borderlands in the Zhou dynasty to southern China in early Chinese dynasties. By tracing the origins and developments of local bronze cultures in southern China, he will explore how metal had already transformed this peripheral region in Bronze Age China into the center of material and cultural exchanges not only between north and south China but also between Eurasia and Southeast Asia.