Charlotte Davis Furth (January 22, 1934 – June 19, 2022) was an American scholar of Chinese history. She was a professor at

California State University, Long Beach California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) is a public research university in Long Beach, California. The 322-acre campus is the second largest of the 23-school California State University system (CSU) and one of the largest universities i ...

, and at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

. She was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

and a

Fulbright fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

for her research, and published several books.

Early life and education

Charlotte Davis was born in

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

, and raised in

Chapel Hill, North Carolina Chapel Hill is a town in Orange, Durham and Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-largest municipality in the state. Chapel Hill, Durham, and the state ca ...

, the daughter of Lambert Davis and Isabella Davis. She earned a bachelor's degree in French literature from the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

in 1954. She completed doctoral studies in Chinese history at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1965, the same year her younger child was born.

Career

Furth taught history for 23 years at the

(CSULB), until 1989, and then for 18 more years at the

(USC). In 1972 she was awarded a

. She taught at

Beijing University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

in 1981 and 1982, one of the first American Fulbright fellows admitted to teach in China after the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

. She retired with emeritus status from USC in 2008. In 2012 she was honored by the

Association for Asian Studies The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association focusing on Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The Association provides members with an Annua ...

with an award for her "distinguished contributions to Asian Studies."

Publications

Furth was co-editor of ''

Late Imperial China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...

,'' and served on the editorial board of ''

The Journal of Asian Studies ''The Journal of Asian Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Asian Studies, covering Asian studies, ranging from history, the arts, social sciences, to phil ...

.'' She was a contributor to ''

The Cambridge History of China ''The Cambridge History of China'' is a series of books published by the Cambridge University Press (CUP) covering the history of China from the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC to 1982 AD. The series was conceived by British historian Den ...

.'' * ''Ting Wen-Chiang: Science and China’s New Culture'' (1970) * ''Reflections on the

May Fourth Movement The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and political movement which grew out of student protests in Beijing on May 4, 1919. Students gathered in front of Tiananmen (The Gate of Heavenly Peace) to protest the Chinese ...

: A Symposium'' (1972, with

Merle Goldman Merle Goldman (born March 12, 1931; Chinese: 戈德曼) is an American historian and sinologist of modern China. She is Professor Emerita of History, Boston University, especially known for a series of studies on the role of intellectuals under th ...

and Jerome B. Grieder) * ''The Limits of Change: Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China'' (1976, edited by Furth) * ''Women in China: Bibliography of Available English Language Materials'' (1984, with

Lucie Cheng Lucie Cheng () was a sociologist known for her work in Asian American studies, as well as being the first permanent director of the Asian American Studies Center, UCLA. She was also one of the first American academics to forge links with mainla ...

and Hon-ming Yip) * "Blood, Body, and Gender: Medical Images of the Female Condition in China 1600–1850" (1986) * "Concepts of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Infancy in Ch'ing Dynasty China" (1987) * "Androgynous Males and Deficient Females: Biology and Gender Boundaries in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China" (1988) * "Chinese Medicine and the Anthropology of Menstruation in Contemporary Taiwan" (1992, with Ch'en Shu-yueh) * "Poetry and Women's Culture in Late Imperial China: Editor's Introduction" (1992) * ''A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History 960-1665'' (1999) * "The Physician as Philosopher of the Way: Zhu Zhenheng (1282–1358)" (2006) * ''Thinking with Cases: Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History'' (2007, with Judith T. Zeitlin and Ping-chen Hsiung) * ''Health and Hygiene in Chinese East Asia: Policies and Publics in the Long Twentieth Century'' (2010, with Angela Ki Che Leung and Qizi Liang) * ''Opening to China: A Memoir of Normalization, 1981–1982'' (2017)

Personal life

In 1956, Charlotte Davis married her childhood friend Montgomery Furth, a philosophy professor. They had two children, David and Isabella. Her husband died in 1991, and she died in 2022, at the age of 88.

References

External links

Video of Charlotte Furth talking about her 2017 memoir
on YouTube {{DEFAULTSORT:Furth, Charlotte 1934 births 2022 deaths People from Charlottesville, Virginia University of North Carolina alumni Stanford University Department of History faculty Historians of China California State University, Long Beach faculty University of Southern California faculty