Max Gordon Oidtmann (born 1979) is an American historian 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 ...

(1368–1912) and

Inner Asia Inner Asia refers to the northern and landlocked regions spanning North, Central and East Asia. It includes parts of western and northeast China, as well as southern Siberia. The area overlaps with some definitions of 'Central Asia', mostly the ...

(Islamic

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

, and

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...

). He also has interest in

modern 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 chapter ...

and the affairs of Chinese

ethnic minorities The term 'minority group' has different usages depending on the context. According to its common usage, a minority group can simply be understood in terms of demographic sizes within a population: i.e. a group in society with the least number o ...

. He was an assistant professor at

Georgetown University in Qatar Georgetown University in Qatar (GU-Q) is a campus of Georgetown University ( Washington, D.C.) in Education City, outside of Doha, Qatar. It is one of Georgetown University's eleven undergraduate and graduate schools, and is supported by a partn ...

from 2013 to 2021. Oidtmann is currently a faculty member at the Institute for Sinology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany.

Education

He earned a B.A. in History (with concentration in

East Asian Studies East Asian studies is a distinct multidisciplinary field of scholarly enquiry and education that promotes a broad humanistic understanding of East Asia past and present. The field includes the study of the region's culture, written language, histo ...

) at Carleton College in 2001 and a M.A. degree in East Asian Regional Studies at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. In March 2014, Oidtmann received his Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University.

Academic position

He previously taught Asian History as well as specialized courses on the

History of 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 chapt ...

, Islam and Muslims in East Asia, Tibet, and comparative studies of empire and colonialism at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service campus in

Doha Doha ( ar, الدوحة, ad-Dawḥa or ''ad-Dōḥa'') is the capital city and main financial hub of Qatar. Located on the Persian Gulf coast in the east of the country, north of Al Wakrah and south of Al Khor, it is home to most of the count ...

Qatar Qatar (, ; ar, قطر, Qaṭar ; local vernacular pronunciation: ), officially the State of Qatar,) is a country in Western Asia. It occupies the Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it ...

, from 2013 to 2021.

Fields of research

Max Oidtmann works with historical materials in

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

, Tibetan, Uyghur, Manchu and

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

languages.Max Gordon Oidtmann
Oidtmann's book ''Forging the Golden Urn: Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet, 1792-1911'' (2018) is a political history of reincarnation in China and Tibet from the late 1700s through the present.

Publication list

;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
A “Dog-eat-dog” World: Qing Jurispractices and the Legal Inscription of Piety in Amdo
''Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident'', Issue 40, 2016, pp. 151–182,
Overlapping Empires: Religion, Politics, and Ethnicity in Nineteenth-Century Qinghai
''Late Imperial China'', Volume 37, Number 2, December 2016, pp. 41–91 ; Book chapters * (With Yang Hongwei), A Study of Qing Dynasty "''Xiejia''" Rest Houses in Xunhua Subprefecture, Gansu, i
''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 ; Books * ''Forging the Golden Urn: The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet'', Columbia University Press, 2018, 352 p.
WEAI Author Q&A: Max Oidtmann's "Forging the Golden Urn", by Ross Yelsey, August 6, 2018
; 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

Reviews of the author's contributions

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."Studying Tibet Today: a discussion with Robbie Barnett
''The China Story Journal'' (Australian Centre on China in the World), 20 August 2014.

References