Susan Whitfield (born 1960) is a British scholar, currently Professor in Silk Road Studies at the

Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures The Sainsbury Institute for Art (SIfA) is based in the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. Organization The Sainsbury Institute for Art is an umbrella organization that brings together the ...

(SISJAC),

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

. She previously worked at the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. She specialises in the history and archaeology of the

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

but has also written on

human rights Human rights are Morality, moral principles or Social norm, normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for ce ...

and

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

in China.

Career

Whitfield obtained a PhD in

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians ha ...

from

SOAS, University of London SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

in 1995, with a dissertation entitled ''Politics against the Pen'' on the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

poet

Liu Zongyuan Liu Zongyuan (; 77328 November 819) was a Chinese philosopher, poet, and politician who lived during the Tang Dynasty. Liu was born in present-day Yongji, Shanxi. Along with Han Yu, he was a founder of the Classical Prose Movement. He has been t ...

. Whitfield was the first director of the

International Dunhuang Project The International Dunhuang Project (IDP) is an international collaborative effort to conserve, catalogue and digitise manuscripts, printed texts, paintings, textiles and artefacts from the Mogao caves at the Western Chinese city of Dunhuang and v ...

, a position which she held for 24 years, from 1993 until July 2017. In this capacity she was involved in research and cataloguing of Central Asian manuscripts at the British Library and elsewhere. She has a particular interest in censorship and forgeries from

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

. In an interview at the University of Minnesota in 2013, she talks about how she came to her interest in China and Central Asia and ways in which her interest in Central Asia has made her rethink Chinese history, regarding it as rather more fragmented and diverse than unitary narratives might have us believe. Whitfield holds a position as Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute of Archaeology of

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

Books

* * * * * * * * * Whitfield, Susan (ed.) (2019). ''Silk Roads. Peoples, Cultures, Landscapes''. Thames and Hudson.

References

External links

Susan_Whitfield_talks_about_the_Diamond_Sutra
_in_December_2007.html" ;"title="Diamond Sutra">Susan Whitfield talks about the Diamond Sutra
in December 2007">Diamond Sutra">Susan Whitfield talks about the Diamond Sutra
in December 2007
Silk Road Digressions
(Whitfield's blog) {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitfield, Susan 1960 births Alumni of SOAS University of London Employees of the British Library English historians Living people British sinologists