Jiakai Sheng is a historian of modern East Asia with a focus on the Japanese empire and diaspora, imperialism in China, and the urban history of treaty ports. His current book project investigates the Japanese settler community in Shanghai and takes a transnational approach to examine the social, spatial, and administrative making of the treaty port. Jiakai’s research explores the conceptualization and practice of imperial dominance, nationalist resistance, community-building, state-society relations, everyday life, and urban governance. He holds a PhD in History from the University of Chicago (2024), an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Yale University (2015), and a BA in History from Tufts University (2014).

Dissertation: Re-Colonizing Shanghai: the Japanese Settlement in a Chinese Treaty Port (1895-1937)

Publications: 
"Negotiating Extra-settlement Roads: Boundary Making, Administrative Disputes, and Power Shifts in Treaty-port Shanghai, 1860–1937," Modern Asian Studies, Open Access, May 27, 2024.

“Homeward Bound: The Postwar Repatriation of Japanese Civilians in Shanghai, 1945-1948,” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 18, Issue 23, December 1, 2020.