By /

Li Na

Na Li 2024

Dr. Na Li is a public historian and urban planning scholar. Her research focuses on public history and urban preservation. During her decade-long work in China, Na Li has pioneered the field of public history in China. Before joining NUS, she was appointed Associated Researcher, Chair of Public History at University of Vienna (2023-2024), Research Fellow/Professor at Department of History, Zhejiang University (2017- 2022), and the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Chongqing University (2012-2017). She is Founding Editor for Public History: A National Journal of Public History (《公众史学》).

She contributes to a better understanding of public history at a global scale. She served on the Board of Directors for the National Council on Public History in the US (2017-2020), as International Affiliate of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University in Canada (2011-2021), and as Associate of Australian Centre for Public History, University of Technology Sydney (2014-).

She has written three monographs, Kensington Market: Collective Memory, Public History, and Toronto’s Urban Landscape (University of Toronto Press, 2015), Public History: A Critical Introduction (Peking University Press, 2019), and Seeing History: Public History in China (De Gruyter, 2023).

RESEARCH & TEACHING INTEREST
  • Public history
  • Oral history
  • Urban preservation
  • Digital humanities


SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Books

  • Na Li. Seeing History: Public History in China, Public History in International Perspectives series, De Gruyter, 2023.
  • Na Li, ed. Public History in the Global Context, Public History Review, vol. 30, 2023.
  • Na Li, ed. Translation Series of Public History (《公众史学译丛》) , Commercial Press, 2023.
  • Na Li. Public History: A Critical Introduction (《公众史学研究入门》) , Peking University Press, 2019.
  • Na Li, ed. Public History: A National Journal of Public History in China （《公众史学》）, 1-5, Zhejiang University Press, 2018-2023.
  • Na Li. Collective Memory, Public History, and Urban Landscapes (《集体记忆、公众史学与城市景观》）, Shanghai SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2017.
  • Na Li. Kensington Market: Collective Memory, Public History, and Toronto’s Urban Landscape, University of Toronto Press, 2015.

Articles & Book Chapters

  • Na Li. “Prosuming History in China: A Paradigm Shift.” Public History Review, vol. 30, 2023, pp.43-52.
  • Na Li. “Performing History in China: Cultural Memory in the Present.” International Public History, vol. 5, no. 2, 2022, pp. 127-141. https://doi.org/10.1515/iph-2022-2049.
  • Na Li. “Public History: the Future of Teaching the Past.” Public History Review, vol. 29, 2022, pp. 1-13, https://doi.org/10.5130/ phrj.v29i0.7859.
  • Na Li. “When Environmental History Goes Public.” Nature + Culture Journal, 16, Issue 3, Winter 2021, pp. 1-28.
  • Na Li. “Playing the Past: Historical Video Games as Participatory Public History in China.”Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technology, 2020, DOI: 10.1177/1354856520967606.
  • Na Li. “History, Memory, and Identity: Oral History in China.” Oral History Review, vol. 47, no. 1, 2020, DOI: 10.1080/00940798.2020.1714452.
  • Na Li. “Museums and the Public: Visions for Museums in China.” The Public Historian, vol. 42, no. 1, 2020, pp.29-53.
  • Na Li. “Family History in China at the Crossroads: Family Narrative, Personal Memory, and Public History.” Journal of Family History, vol. 44, no. 4, 2019, pp.449-469.
  • Na Li. “The Origin of Modern Public History in China.” History Workshop Journal, 88, 2019, pp.252-273.
  • Na Li. “Public History in China: Past Making in the Present.” in Paul Ashton and Alex Trapeznik, eds., What is Public History Globally? Using the Past in the Present, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2019, pp. 51-62.
  • Na Li. “Chinese and the Pasts: Exploring Historical Consciousness of Ordinary Chinese – Initial Findings from Chongqing.” in Anna Clark and Carla Peck, Contemplating Historical Consciousness: Notes from the Field (Making Sense of History), Berghan Books, 2019, pp. 125-141.
  • Na Li. “Some Patterns of Making Public History in China (1).” Public History Weekly 5  (2017) 35, DOI: doi.org/10.1515/phw-2017-10267.
  • Na Li. “Some Patterns of Making Public History in China (2).” Public History Weekly 5 (2017) 39, DOI: doi.org/10.1515/phw-2017-10447.
  • Na Li, Martha A. Sandweiss. “Teaching Public History: A Cross-Cultural Experiment ——The First Public History Faculty Training Program in China.” The Public Historian, Vol. 38, no. 3, 2016, pp.78-100.
  • Na Li. “Whose History, Whose Memory? A Culturally Sensitive Narrative Approach.” in Max Page and Marla Miller, eds., Bending the Future: Fifty Ideas for the Next Fifty Years of Historic Preservation in the United States, University of Massachusetts Amherst Press, 2016, pp. 136-139.
  • Na Li. “Introduction: Going Public, Going Global -- Teaching Public History through International Collaboration.” Public History Review, Vol.22, 2015, pp.1-7.
  • Na Li. “Public History in China: is it Possible? ”Public History Review, Vol. 21, 2014, pp. 21-40.
  • Na Li. and Elisabeth M. Hamin. “Preservation.” Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning, Co-edited by Rachel Weber and Randall Crane, Oxford University Press, NY. 2012, pp.181-196.
  • Na Li, “Preserving Urban Landscapes as Public History: The Chinese Context.” The Public Historian, Vol. 32, no. 4, 2010, pp. 51-61.
  • Na Li. “The Role of Memory: Urban Landscapes as Public History – Evolution, Interpretation, and Preservation.” International Forum of Young Researchers and Professionals in Cultural Heritage, International Council on Monuments and Sites 16th General Assembly and International Scientific Symposium, 2008.