Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies

ABOUT The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University brings together a global community of world-leading academics and practitioners to advance scholarship in all fields of China Studies. HISTORY Founded in 1955 by Professor John King Fairbank, the Fairbank Center has been the home for China Studies at Harvard for almost 70 years. The Fairbank Center was founded in 1955 by Professor John King Fairbank, a leading scholar in modern and contemporary China studies. The Center was originally called the Center for East Asian Research. Under Professor Fairbank’s leadership, the Center took an active role in promoting the study of modern and contemporary China from a social science perspective. At the time, this focus marked a sharp departure from the field of Sinology, which had emphasized the study of texts from a humanistic perspective.