A message from Eugenia Lean, Director of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (on leave AY 2017-18) and Associate Professor of Chinese History at Columbia University, about the death of Adam M. McKeown, who was a WEAI faculty member and professor of history at Columbia University from 2001 to 2013:
“It is with deep sadness that I inform you that historian and former colleague, Adam McKeown, died in a tragic accident last Sunday. Adam received his PhD from the history department at the University of Chicago, working with Professors Guy Alitto, Prasenjit Duara and Gerald Suttles. He taught at Northeastern University and then, moved to Columbia University, where he was tenured. Adam was a uniquely gifted and creative scholar, and a pioneer in the field of global history and the study of the Chinese diaspora. His two monographs, Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change (Chicago 2001) and Melancholy Order (Columbia 2008), are examples of his superb and original scholarly work. He helped to lead the shift toward transnational approaches to historical research, and he was one of the founders of Columbia’s International and Global History program. Adam left the academy a few years ago in order to pursue new directions in his life, but he remained a friend and a wonderfully original individual who enjoyed living by his own rules, exploring the world, and raising a lovely daughter. By all accounts, he was living a very happy and fulfilling life, right up to the end. He will be sorely missed.”
