Emily Williams is a cultural historian of modern China, with a particular interest in Maoist material culture and collections of red relics in contemporary China. She is the author of Collecting the Revolution: British Engagements with Chinese Cultural Revolution Material Culture (Rowman Littlefield, 2022), and editor (with Loredana Cesarino) of China from the Margins: New Narratives of the Past and Present (Routledge, 2024). She teaches modules in Chinese modern history, society, and aesthetics. She welcomes PhD proposals in these areas.

Emily received her Ph.D. from Birkbeck College, University of London in 2016, and taught at Birkbeck College, Christies Education London, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London before joining XJTLU in 2018.

Cultural heritage

Twentieth-century Chinese history

Legacies of the Mao era in contemporary China

Mao-era visual and material culture

Material Culture History

Fudan Fellow - Department of History - Fudan University Shanghai - 2017

Senior Teaching Fellow in Modern Chinese History - SOAS, University of London - 2016-2017

Lecturer in Arts of China - Christies Education London - 2016-2017

Research Assistant - Chinese Poster Collection, University of Westminster - 2012-2014

CCS110 - Aesthetics, Art and Design in China

CCS312 - Cities in Chinese History

CCS004 - Introduction to China Studies

CCS409 - Final Year Project (MA Thesis Supervisor)

CCS305 - Final Year Project (BA Thesis Supervisor)

CCS105 - Twentieth Century China

CCS203 - China: Social stratification and change