Staff profile

Dr Mei-Fen Kuo

ARC Australian Postdoctoral Fellow (Industry), Lecturer

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Social Sciences

Martin Building - Room 444, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

PhD (La Trobe)

Membership of professional associations

Australian Endeavour Alumni, Member of Asian Australian Studies Research Network, Australian Historical Association, International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas

Area of study

Asian Studies

Brief profile

Mei-fen Kuo left her native Taiwan to undertake a PhD thesis on the late 19th century and early 20th century origins and development of Chinese-Australian community in Sydney under Professor John Fitzgerald from 2003. In 2008, she was awarded a PhD degree by La Trobe University following a number of glowing examiners’ reports. After completing her doctorate, Dr Kuo won an internationally competitive Australian Endeavour Award in 2009, and this year secured an equally competitive Australian Post-doctoral Fellowship as a part of a three-year Linkage grant supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Recent publications

Books

  • Kuo, Mei-fen (1999) (eds) Oral History of Taiwanese Democracy Movement, China Times Publishing, Taipei.

Refereed Articles

  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2011) ‘"Huaqiao" Narratives and Political Alliances of Urban Chinese-Australian Communities in the Early Twentieth Century’, Bulletin of Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, Vol.71, pp.157-202.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2010) ‘Gender Discussion and Social Identity in Chinese-Australian Newspapers in the Early 20th Century’, Research on Women in Modern Chinese History, Vol.18 Academia Sinica, Taiwan, pp.175-214.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2009) ‘Book review of Big White Lie’ (in Chinese), Bulletin of the Institution of Modern History, Vol.64, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, pp.137-143.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2009) ‘The Making of a Diasporic Identity: The Case of the Sydney Chinese Commercial Elite, 1890s-1900s’, Journal of Chinese Overseas, Vol.5, No.2, pp.336-363.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2008) ‘The Chinese Australian Herald and the shaping of a modern “Imagined Chinese Community” in 1890s colonial Sydney’, Vol.2, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, pp.34-53.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2008) ‘A Journey of the Chinese Nationalists in 1914: Constructing the Network of the Early Kuomingtang and Chinese Republic News’, Vol.2, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, pp.157-164.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2000) ‘Cultural Nationalism of Decolonization Action in Ireland, 1890-1920’, The History Review.

Conference Papers:

  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2011) ‘From Yong China League to Australasia Kuo Min Tang, 1902-1926’, Conference of Australian Historical Association, 4-8 July 2011 at Tasmania, Australia
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2011) ‘Social identity of urban Chinese in early Federation’, conference of The International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas, 21-22 June 2011 at Chinese University of Hong Kong

Older publications

  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2009) ‘Book review of Big White Lie’ (in Chinese), Bulletin of the Institution of Modern History, Vol. 64, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, pp. 137-143. 
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2010) ‘Introducing the “Chinese Australian History Collections Online”’, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, Volume 4, pp. 140-149.
  • Kuo, Mei-fen (2010) ‘The KMT Historical Archives in Sydney and Melbourne (1910s–1960s): A Research Note of a Historian’s (and Rag-picker’s) Craft’, Chinese Southern Diaspora Studies, Volume 4, pp. 215-222.

Research projects

Research Undertaken

  • 2006: Community Heritage Grant for Significance Assistance Report on Archives of Nationalist Party of Australasia, National Library of Australia, National Library of Australia
  • 2009: Community Heritage Grant for Significance Assistance Report on Chinese Consulate archives, National Library of Australia
  • 2010: Local History Grants Program, Victorian Public Records Office - http://www.kuomintang.org.au/
  • 2010-2012 Digitalization project of Chinese-Australian Historical documents with Institution of Modern History at Academia Sinica (Taiwan)

Research Grants

  • 2003-2008: Scholarship of the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation, Taiwan
  • 2009: Australian Endeavour Award
  • 2010-2013: ARC Linkage Postdoctoral Fellowship

Research Projects

ARC Linkage Project - Unlocking Australia’s Chinese Archive: The political organisation and social experience of the Chinese Australian Community 1909-1939

This ARC funded project will focus on the newly discovered archives of the first Chinese Consulate in Australia together with the archives of the Sydney and Melbourne branches of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), which will be used to research the political and social history of the Chinese in Australia during the inter-war years, and to write a path breaking book on that history. It will explore how the identity of this diasporic community was shaped by relations with its host society, with a rapidly transforming Chinese Republic and with the wider regional Chinese diaspora. Key documents from these archives will also be digitalised and made available for public research and two oral history symposia will collect the memories of elderly members of the community.