Nora Yitong Qiu is a Lecturer in Modern East Asian History at University College London. Prior to this she was a Post-Doctoral Researcher on the Global Correspondent Banking 1870-2000 project between March 2023 and August 2024 where her research analyzed inter-bank relations in East Asia, in particular in regions including Shanghai, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Manchuria, each of which were connected to the financial centres in Japan, Europe, and North America.
Nora is an Economic Historian of East Asia, focusing on the Qing Empire and 20th century China. She holds a B.A. in Economics and History from Mount Holyoke College, USA and M.Sc. in Economic History (Research) from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Ph.D. in Economic History from LSE. Her dissertation “Power and Identity in the Qing Empire: A Study of the Political and Economic Life of the Elites through confiscation inventories 1700-1912)” was supervised by Patrick Wallis and Lars Laamann. She built the first fine-grained inventories and financial portfolios on Manchus, Mongols, and the Han political elite of the Qing Empire. She compares material culture across geographical, ethnic and gender divides.
Nora has taught undergraduate and master courses on economic history of East Asia, global economic history, and financial history at LSE, Economic History department. She is interested in researching the economic and financial history of diverse cultural groups, using an interdisciplinary approach. She has a particular focus on studying underrepresented cultural minorities of East Asia, including sub-ethnic Han groups, Manchus, Mongols, Tibetans and the state’s treatment of them. She is fluent in Chinese, Classical Chinese, English, German, and Japanese. She reads Manchu and basic classic Tibetan and Russian.
