Dr. Lianbin Dai is a Sinologist specializing in cultural and social history of late imperial China (1368–1911). He is a Research Associate at the York Centre for Asian Research, York University. Before joining in UBC Asian Studies, he had been teaching in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies in the University of Victoria. He also has held research and teaching positions at University of Alberta (2015–2017), Harvard University (2013–2014), and Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin, 2012).

Dr. Dai’s research encompasses Neo-Confucian learning, knowledge culture, book culture, textual scholarship, and state–society relations. During his affiliation with UBC Asian Studies, he will be conducting a project “Lay Buddhist Activism in State-Religion Interactions in Modern China,” a case study of Republican lay Buddhist Jiang Weinong (1872–1938) whose Lectures on the Diamond Sutra has been popular among Chinese Buddhists. This project is sponsored by the Kiang family, and will be incorporated into the FROGBEAR Initiative, under the supervision of Professor Jinhua Chen.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dai has two research articles in progress, “Production of Geographical Knowledge and the Manchu Conquest of Central Asia in the Eighteenth Century,” and “The Politics of Managing Books in the Imperial Library.”

Dr. Dai is the author of several journal articles and book chapters (see his CV). His recent publications include “The Ming State and Neo-Confucian Thinking Behind Kaifeng Jewry’s Biculturalism,” Studies in Chinese Religions 10.2 (2024):151-180; and “The Practice of Textual Criticism in Traditional China as Illustrated by Lu Wenchao’s (1717-1796) Work,” The Vatican Library Review 2 (2023):145-171.

With Timothy Brook, he edited a volume Chinese Statecraft: Political Theory and Administrative Practice in Ming China which is coming out with Cambridge University Press in 2025.

His monograph “Knowledge Culture in Late Imperial China: The Neo-Confucian Practicality of the Humanities” is under review, with Cornell University Press.