Daniel Asen

Research Interests: History of law, science, and medicine in late imperial and Republican China; the cultural and social politics of expertise; the history of death and the body.

Daniel Asen is an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University-Newark. His research interests include the intersection of law, science, and medicine in late imperial and Republican China, the cultural and social politics of expertise, and the history of death and the body. He is currently working on a book manuscript that examines how sudden and suspicious deaths were investigated in early 20th century Beijing and the role of China’s late imperial tradition of forensic science in the emergence of a modern, expert-driven statecraft of the dead during the Republican period.

Professor Asen earned his BA and MA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2004 and his PhD from Columbia University in 2012.