Kent (Bowen) Zheng

Kent (Bowen) Zheng is interested in historiography, state formation, and rhetorics of legitimacy in medieval China. He received his B.A. from Bard College in 2022, where he joint-majored in Historical Studies and Classical Studies. Working on his senior thesis, he explored the "First Great Divergence" between Europe and China in the early middle ages through a comparative reading of state-building narratives in historiographical texts from that period. For the past two years, he has been able to pursue his interests at Harvard's Regional Studies: East Asia program while working toward an A.M. degree. His Master's thesis compares two dynastic histories from early medieval China, focusing on shared themes, rhetorical strategies, and historiographical divergences. At EALC, Kent aims to both deepen his understanding of early medieval Chinese history and literature and broaden the scope of his investigation, incorporating methodologies from philology and intellectual history as well as other subfields in East Asian studies.