I am a historian and global studies scholar specializing in East Asia, China, and the historical processes of globalization. My research examines how states, societies, and environments interact across time, with particular attention to the ways global economic, political, and ecological transformations reshape local communities. I am especially interested in East Asia's place in the world and how globalization has transformed the region from the early modern period to the present.

More broadly, my interests span environmental history, global history, modern East Asia, empire, war and society, and the historical roots of contemporary issues in China and the wider East Asia. Beyond my research, I am deeply interested in East Asian popular culture, including music (I’m a big C-Rock and K-pop fan), film, and food, particularly as sites of global cultural exchange and as windows into broader social and historical processes. Drawing on both historical and anthropological perspectives, I explore how culture circulates across borders and how global connections shape everyday life.

I also lead study abroad programs in South Korea, providing students with opportunities to engage directly with globalization and its impact on Korean culture and contemporary society. I am fluent in English and Chinese (Mandarin and Classical Chinese) and have conversationally functional in Korean and Spanish. Having lived in Beijing for seven years and frequently visit Korea, maintaining close ties with East Asia through regular travel and research, I bring both scholarly and lived perspectives to my teaching and research.

Research

My current research focuses on the environmental and social history of the northern Jiangsu coast in China. Using a longue durée approach spanning more than two millennia, I examine how human intervention transformed coastal ecologies and how those environmental changes reshaped labor systems, social organization, and state power. This project explores the connections between environmental transformation, ecological degradation, capitalist labor regimes, and the fragmentation of local communities, tracing these processes from early imperial China to the contemporary era.

My previous research examined the aftermath of the Taiping Civil War (1850–1864), focusing on postwar reconstruction, state-building, refugees, veterans, trauma, and memory in late Qing China.

Education

• Ph.D., History, University of California, Irvine, 2016
• M.A., History, University of California, Irvine, 2012
• B.A., History and Chinese, University of Maryland, College Park, 2005
• Peking University, Advanced Chinese Studies, 2007
• Beijing Language and Culture University, Chinese Language Studies, 2006

Courses

• ANTH 214 – Food and Culture
• ANTH 351 – Peoples and Cultures of East Asia
• GLST 201 – Introduction to Global Studies
• GLST 280 – Colonization, Decolonization, and Globalization
• GLST 476 – Environment and Human Rights
• GLST 484 – Global Studies Senior Capstone Research Seminar
• HIST 181 – Introduction to East Asian Civilization
• HIST 282 – Modern East Asia
• HIST 377 – China in Revolution
• HIST 380 – China Since Mao
• HIST 382 – History of Modern Japan

Selected Works

• “Saving the People from Fire and Water: Post-war Reconstruction after the Taiping Civil War, 1864-1894,” PhD diss, (University of California, 2017)
• "Unstable Shores: A Longue Durée Environmental History of State Power, Ecological Exploitation, and Social Dislocation in Yancheng," University of Kansas Center for East Asian Studies (2026)
• "Drifting Soldiers and the Loyal Dead: Soldiers of the Irregular Army in the Aftermath of the Taiping Civil War," Association for Asian Studies, Washington, DC (2018)
• "Moving the War to the Frontier: Post-Taiping Reconstruction and the Expansion of the Xiang Army in the Southwestern Frontier," Association for Asian Studies, San Diego, CA (2013)
• “Would I Know Them if I Saw Them? Memory, Family, and Separation after the Taiping Civil War,” Sinological Sushi, (2014) 
• "The Hidden History Behind China's Hidden Camps: The Historical Context of Xinjiang and China's Uighur Detention Camps," UNL Global Café (2021)
• "Global Japan, Global Foods: How Globalization, Empire, and Industrialization Shaped Modern Japanese Cuisine," Kawasaki Reading Room, University of Nebraska–Lincoln (2025)
• "Warning Shots of Fascism: Lessons from the Dismantling of Democracy in 1930s Japan," Kawasaki Reading Room, University of Nebraska–Lincoln (2026)
• Global @ Nebraska Online Educational Research Grant, course research and assignment redesign project for GLST 201: Introduction to Global Studies (2025)

Translations and Other Works:

• Heselton, Christopher C., Justin Olmanson, et al. "DaZiBao: Multimodality in Learning and Communicating via Chinese Characters." In Teaching and Learning Chinese as a Second or Foreign Language: Emerging Trends, edited by Ko-yin Sung. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020.
• Heselton, Christopher C., Justin Olmanson, et al. "Techniques and Methods Change, Methodology Remains the Same: Web Technology Use as Cosmetic Change in CFL Classrooms." Chinese Language Teaching Methodology and Technology 1, no. 4 (2018).
• Kenneth Pomeranz, "Shangxia Taishan: Zhongguo Minjian Xinyang Zhengzhi Zhong de Bixia Yuanjun (ca. 1500–1949)," Xin Shi Xue 20, no. 4 (2010).
• Kenneth Pomeranz, "Zhengtong Zongjiao Xingwei, Zhengtong Zongjiao Xinyang ji Taishan Niangniang," Qing Shi Wenti (2011).
• Pan Wei, "Sixty Years of the PRC and the China Model," in Issues in Contemporary Chinese Thought and Culture, edited by Arif Dirlik and Yu Keping. Boston: Brill, 2013.
• Ye Wenhu, Chinese Perspectives on the Environment and Sustainable Development. Boston: Brill, 2013.
• Arif Dirlik and Yu Keping, On China's Cultural Transformation. Boston: Brill, 2016.