Rate My Professor Brian Moloughney

Brian Moloughney is Emeritus Professor of History in the University of Otago's Division of Humanities. He obtained his BA in 1984 and MA in 1986 from the University of Canterbury, followed by a PhD from the Australian National University in 1996. Throughout his academic career at Otago, he advanced to full professorship and served as Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Division of Humanities from approximately 2010 until 2015, when he was succeeded by Professor Tony Ballantyne. He retired from the university in 2023 but maintains an active emeritus role, listed among the History programme's emeritus professors. Moloughney's research centers on Chinese history, with a particular emphasis on Chinese historiography and the evolution of historical writing in twentieth-century China. His current work examines the interactions between Chinese scholars and Western Sinologists in Peking during the 1920s and 1930s, exploring how these exchanges shaped modern Chinese Studies in both China and the West. He has supervised postgraduate research in Chinese history and literature, historiography, imperial cultures, and the Chinese diaspora. Additionally, he holds the position of Associate Director of the New Zealand Contemporary China Research Centre.

Moloughney has made significant contributions through his publications on Chinese and New Zealand history. He co-edited Transforming History: The Making of a Modern Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China with Peter Zarrow (Chinese University Press, 2011), a comprehensive volume on the development of history as an academic field in China. Other key works include the article 'S. A. M. Adshead on China, World Institutions, and World History' in the Journal of World History (2016) and 'Arthur W. Hummel and Gu Jiegang: Translation in the Making of Modern China' in Twentieth-Century China (2017). He contributed chapters such as 'Zhang Yinlin's Early China' in The Politics of Historical Production in Late Qing and Republican China (2007) and 'Pictures of Panyu: Images of China from the Canton Villages Mission' in Early New Zealand Photography (2011). Moloughney also co-edited Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand's Pasts with Tony Ballantyne (University of Otago Press, 2006) and contributed to Asia in the Making of New Zealand, edited with Henry Johnson (Auckland University Press, 2007). His scholarship bridges Chinese historical traditions with New Zealand's multicultural past, particularly the Chinese diaspora. He received funding from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for research on the transformation of Chinese historical writing from 1902 to 1949.