Morris Chou

Thesis title: Debt and Nation: Visualizing China through public finance during 1930s China.

Biography

Qualifications

MSc History, University of Edinburgh (2021-2022)

PhD Economic and Social History, University of Edinburgh (2023-present)

Undergraduate teaching

I have previously tutored for the following courses within the School of Classics, History and Archeology:

  • The Global Economy since 1750
  • Introduction to Historiography
  • The Early Modern World, A Connected History 
  • HCA Writing Centre

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Research summary

Provisional PhD Title: 'Debt and Nation: Visualising National Identities through Debt in 1930s China.' My thesis traces the socio-economic imprint of debt on the national experience and imagination of modernity during 1930s Nationalist China. My research is driven by interest in how financial instruments can produce social values, which in turn shift wider national frameworks and structures. It examines how debt emerged as a contested instrument wielded by the state and social actors alike to contest the shifting socio-economic hierarchies, boundaries and relations.

Current research interests

Debt and credit, Social Networks, Nationalism and Identities, Modernity, Institutions and Structures

Project activity

  • ECGH Asian Histories Graduate Network [Co-Founder, 2024-present]
  • Edinburgh for Global History Graduate Workshop [Co-Convener, 2024-2025]

Organiser

  • Asian Histories Graduate Network Conference [May 2026]
  • Economic and Social History Graduate Conference [June 2024]

Papers delivered

  • The Making of the ‘Modern’ Peasant: Credit Cooperatives and Rural Encounters in 1930s Nationalist China, British Association for Chinese Studies Annual Conference, University of Lancaster, September 2026
  • To the Villages: Negotiating State-building through Rural Encounters in 1930s Nationalist China, Transnational and Global History Seminar’s Annual Graduate Student Conference, University of Oxford, June 2026
  • Credit, Rural Expansion and State-building: The Emergence of Credit Cooperatives in 1930s Nationalist China, Lancaster Historical Postgraduate Conference 2026, University of Lancaster, June 2026
  • "Mobilizing Capital: The Boxer Indemnity and the Global Integration of 1930s China," British Postgraduate Network for Chinese Studies Conference, University of Glasgow, May 2025 
  • "Unlocking China: Foreign Loans in Modernization," Edinburgh Centre for Global History Graduate Workshop, December 2024
  • "Modernity through Public Finance during the Nanjing Decade," University of Edinburgh, Economic and Social History Graduate Conference, June 2024
  • "Debt and Nation: Visualizing China through public finance during the Nanjing Decade," University of Edinburgh, Graduate Conference, May 2024
This article was published on