Max Oidtmann (or Max Gordon Oidtmann) (born in 1979) is a U.S. historian of Late Imperial China (1368-1912) and Inner Asia (Islamic Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria). He also is interested in modern China and the affairs of minority ethnicities in the People’s Republic of China. An assistant professor of history at Georgetown University, he has taught Asian history – as well as specialized courses on the history of China, Islam and Muslims in East Asia, Tibet, and comparative studies of empire and colonialism – at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar, since 2013.
In 2001, he earned a BA degree in history (with concentration in East Asian Studies) at Carleton College.
In 2007, he earned his M.A. degree in East Asian Regional Studies at Harvard University.
In March 2014, he received his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University.
Since August 2015 he has taught Asian History at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar.
Max Oidtmann works with historical materials in Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Manchu and Japanese languages.
He is currently working on two book projects. The first – Forging the Golden Urn: Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet, 1792-1911 – is a political history of reincarnation in China from the late 1700s through the present. The second – Between Patron and Priest: Qing Legal Culture and the Creation of A "Tibetan World" in Amdo, 1720-1912 – is a study of the legal culture of Tibet during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911).
Prizes and Awards
In 2007 he was awarded the Joseph Fletcher Memorial Prize for excellence in writing an AM thesis by the Committee on Regional States East Asia at Harvard University.
In 2012 he was the recipient of the Award for Best Graduate Student Paper given by the Central Eurasian Studies Society for his article To Be ‘One’s Own Master’: The 19th Century Conflict between Qing Colonial Officials and the Monastic Domain of the Cagan Nomun Han Kūtuku.
Since March 2015 he has been Secretary of the Manchu Studies Society.
Predoctoral research
Banquets, Horses, and Blazing-Hot Rebellions: Qing Frontier Administration and the Muslim Rebellions in Taozhou, 1863-1867, Qing Archival Research (History 2848b, Prof. Philip Kuhn), Spring 2005
Ph.D thesis
Between Patron and Priest: Amdo Tibet Under Qing Rule, 1792-1911, Harvard University, 2014, ProQuest (Abstract)
Peer-reviewed articles
Qing Colonial Legal Culture in Amdo Tibet (original title: A Document from the Xunhua Archives, International Society for Chinese Law & History — 中國法律与歷史國際學會, vol. 1, No 1, November 2014
Imperial Legacies and Revolutionary Legends: The Sibe Cavalry Company, the Eastern Turkestan Republic, and Historical Memories in Xinjiang, Saksaha: A Journal of Manchu Studies, vol. 21, 2014, pp. 49–87
Book chapters
(With Yang Hongwei), A Study of Qing Dynasty "Xiejia" Rest Houses in Xunhua Subprefecture, Gansu, in Muslims in Amdo Tibetan Society: Multidisciplinary Approaches, Marie-Paule Hille, Bianca Horlemann, Paul K. Nietupski, eds., Lexington Books, 2015, 354 p., pp. 21–46
A Case for Gelukpa Governance: The Historians of Labrang, Amdo, and the Manchu Rulers of China, in Greater Tibet. An Examination of Borders, Ethnic Boundaries, and Cultural Areas, P. Christiaan Klieger ed., Rowman & Littlefield, 2015, 178 p., pp. 111–148
Conferences and seminars
Qing Post-Pacification Reconstruction: Community Relations in the Sino-Tibetan-Muslim Borderlands, 1820-1880, paper presented at the International Association for Tibetan Studies Conference, University of British Columbia (Canada), August 2010.
The Nineteenth-Century Crisis of the Mongol Banners in Amdo, paper presented at the American Council for Mongolian Studies Conference, Ulanbaatar (Mongolia), June 2011.
The Warring States: Tibetan Buddhists and the Colonial Encounter in Late Qing Amdo, Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Convention, October 2012 (Abstract)
Shamanic Imperialism: The Qianlong Emperor’s Attack on Tibetan Divination Technologies and the Origins of the Golden Urn, paper presented at the American Association of Religion Annual Meeting, November 19, 2012 (Astract)
Muslim Mediators, Tibetan Conflicts: Chinese Muslims and Colonial Legal Culture in Early Modern China, Invited talk, New York University Abu Dhabi, November 18, 2014 (Abstract)
The "Warring States" of Amdo: Qing Jurispractice and the Creation of the "Tibetan World", 1772-1911, paper presented at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies in Chicago on March 26 and 27, 2015 (Abstract) (and also at Collège de France, Paris, on May 22, 2015.
Politicizing Piety: Qing Legal Culture and its Ramifications for Tibetan Social History, Invited talk, Columbia University Modern China Seminar, September 24, 2015.
The Qing's Last Kūtuktu: Künga Gyeltsen and the Qing's Tibet Policies from the Tongzhi Restoration to 1912, paper presented at the International Manchu Studies Conference, University of Michigan, May 2016
Amdowas Speaking in Code: The Golden Urn and Qing-Geluk Relations in the early 1800s, paper presented at the international conference New Directions in Manchu Studies / Spring 2016 organized by the Center for Chinese Studies at Michigan University (Abstract)
Kökenuur/Qinghai in the 1780s-1820s: A Tripartite Legal Order and the Lay of the Land, paper presented at the May 10, 2016 Inner Asia Law and Society Workshop on "Land Control and Land Use in Historical Perspective"
Reviews
Review of The Prophet and the Party: Shari’a and Sectarianism in China’s Little Mecca, by Matthew Erie, Dissertation Reviews, October 7, 2014
Review by Wesley Chaney (History Department, Stanford University) of Between Patron and Priest: Amdo Tibet Under Qing Rule, In Dissertation Reviews ("Between Patron and Priest is both an encyclopedic treasure trove of information and an important intervention into scholarly debates in a range of fields — Tibetan history, Qing history, colonial studies, and legal pluralism. Through his use of a range of sources in several different languages, Oidtmann brings a completely new level of depth and detail to discussions of the Tibetan-Qing encounter.")
In an interview published on the China Study Journal website, American tibetologist Robert Barnett claims that "we know vastly more about Tibetan areas during the Qing and Republican periods because of work by Hsiao Ting Lin, Max Oidtmann, Bill Coleman, Scott Relyea and other China scholars."
