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About Sarah Bramao-Ramos

Sarah Bramao-Ramos is a PhD candidate in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard. She works on Manchu language books and is interested in anything with a kesike. She can be reached at sbramaoramos@g.harvard.edu
Sarah's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Sarah:

East Asian Studies May 22, 2023

The Precious Summary

A History of the Mongols from Chinggis Khan to the Qing Dynasty

Sagang Sechen. Translated by Johan Elverskog.

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Buddhist cosmological history of the universe, history of Chinggis Khan, history of China, and history of the Mongols — The Precious Summary, written in 1662 by Sagang Sechen, is many …
East Asian Studies May 14, 2023

The Opium Business

A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China

Peter Thilly

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
The Opium Business: A History of Crime and Capitalism in Maritime China (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the opium trade — but not through the relatively well-trodden history of the ‘Opium Wars.’ …
East Asian Studies March 23, 2023

China’s Cold War Science Diplomacy

Gordon Barrett

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
During the early decades of the Cold War, the People’s Republic of China remained far outside mainstream international science — right?  Gordon Barrett’s new book, China’s Cold War Science Diplomacy …
East Asian Studies February 21, 2023

The Culture of Language in Ming China

Sound, Script, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge

Nathan Vedal

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
What is the nature of language? This is the question that Nathan Vedal’s book, The Culture of Language in Ming China: Sound, Script, and the Redefinition of Boundaries of Knowledge …
East Asian Studies January 30, 2023

The Emergence of Global Maoism

China's Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist Movement, 1949-1979

Matthew Galway

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
How do ideas manifest outside of their place of origin, and how do they change once they do? The Emergence of Global Maoism: China’s Red Evangelism and the Cambodian Communist …
East Asian Studies December 27, 2022

Learning to Rule

Court Education and the Remaking of the Qing State, 1861-1912

Daniel Barish

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
The late Qing was a time of great turmoil and upheaval but also a time of great possibility, as scholars, officials, the press, and revolutionaries all sought to find ways …
East Asian Studies November 18, 2022

Testing the Literary

Prose and the Aesthetic in Early Modern China

Alexander Des Forges

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
The eight-legged essay (bagu wen) was the one genre of writing that dominated in late imperial China. As the primary mode of expression in which men were schooled, writing and reading shiwen (modern …
East Asian Studies October 20, 2021

The Peking Gazette in Late Imperial China

State News and Political Authority

Emily Mokros

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
In the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), China experienced far greater access to political information than suggested by the blunt measures of control and censorship employed by modern Chinese regimes. A tenuous …
East Asian Studies August 27, 2021

Meritocracy and Its Discontents

Anxiety and the National College Entrance Exam in China

Zachary M. Howlett

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Every year millions of high school seniors in China take the gaokao, China’s standardized college entrance exam. Students, parents, and head teachers all devote years, sweat, and tears to this …
East Asian Studies July 15, 2021

Chinese Grammatology

Script Revolution and Literary Modernity, 1916-1958

Yurou Zhong

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
In 1928 linguist Yuen Ren Chao had reason to celebrate. The Nationalist government had just recognized his system for writing Chinese, Gwoyeu Romatzyh, so he gleefully wrote (using the system) in …
East Asian Studies July 7, 2021

Making It Count

Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People's Republic of China

Arunabh Ghosh

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
The first historical study of the development of statistics in Mao-era China, Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China (Princeton University Press, 2020) explores …
East Asian Studies June 4, 2021

Land of Strangers

The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia

Eric Schluessel

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Eric Schluessel’s Land of Strangers: The Civilizing Project in Qing Central Asia (Columbia UP, 2020) looks at what happened when, at the end of the Qing, Chinese Confucian revivalists gained …
East Asian Studies January 25, 2021

The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier

Benno Weiner

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
In The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier (Cornell University Press, 2020) Benno Weiner provides an in-depth study of what happened when the Chinese Revolution came to Amdo, a Tibetan …
East Asian Studies January 21, 2021

Fir and Empire

The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China

Ian M. Miller

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Ian M. Miller’s book Fir and Empire: The Transformation of Forests in Early Modern China (University of Washington Press, 2020) offers a transformation of our understanding of China’s early modern …
East Asian Studies January 18, 2021

Realistic Revolution

Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989

Els van Dongen

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
What is the role of the intellectual? Is violence, not to mention radical change, necessary? Can there be a revolution without them? Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics …
East Asian Studies January 14, 2021

Staging Personhood

Costuming in Early Qing Drama

Guojun Wang

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Much is known about the Qing sartorial regulations and how the Qing conquerors forced Han Chinese males to adopt Manchu hairstyle and clothing. But what happened on the stage? What …
East Asian Studies January 13, 2021

A Fashionable Century

Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing

Rachel Silberstein

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Rachel Silberstein’s book A Fashionable Century: Textile Artistry and Commerce in the Late Qing (University of Washington Press, 2020) reveals how Qing fashion was produced at the intersection of commerce …
East Asian Studies November 12, 2020

The City of Blue and White

Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World

Anne Gerritsen

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
We think of blue and white porcelain as the ultimate global commodity: throughout East and Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean including the African coasts, the Americas and Europe, consumers desired …
East Asian Studies September 25, 2020

Unending Capitalism

How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution

Karl Gerth

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Karl Gerth’s new book, Unending Capitalism: How Consumerism Negated China's Communist Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020) details how the state created brands, promoted and advertised particular products, set up department …
East Asian Studies August 14, 2020

Circulating the Code

Print Media and Legal Knowledge in Qing China

Ting Zhang

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
How could a peasant in Shandong in the Qing dynasty come to know enough about a specific law that he felt confident enough to kill his own wife and his …
East Asian Studies July 2, 2020

Know Your Remedies

Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China

He Bian

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
He Bian’s new book Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China (Princeton University Press, 2020) is a beautiful cultural history of pharmacy in early modern China. This …
East Asian Studies June 29, 2020

The Board of Rites and the Making of Qing China

Macabe Keliher

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
Bringing attention to the importance of li (an articulated system of social domination and political legitimization, consisting of rituals, ceremonies, and rites) as the foundation of the Qing political system …
East Asian Studies May 20, 2020

State Formation in China and Taiwan

Bureaucracy, Campaign, and Performance

Julia C. Strauss

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
State Formation in China and Taiwan: Bureaucracy, Campaign, and Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2019) by Julia C. Strauss is a comparative study of regime consolidation in the People’s Republic of …
East Asian Studies May 15, 2020

Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos

Sarah Schneewind

Hosted by Sarah Bramao-Ramos
What recourse did you have in Ming China if your very excellent local official was leaving your area and moving on to a new jurisdiction? You could try to block …