# Magnus Fiskesjö

**Source**: https://anthropology.cornell.edu/magnus-fiskesjo
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## Associate Professor

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### Overview

I teach in the Department of Anthropology, Cornell University and I am also an elected member of these Cornell units: Southeast Asia Program (SEAP), East Asia Program (EAP); CIAMS (Archaeology); Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA); and Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS)

### Research Focus

Some of my research and teaching interests are: General anthropology; the anthropology of children; historical and political anthropology; civilizations and barbarians; spectacles of sovereignty, kingship, and state power; citizenship; autonomy; slavery; genocide and settler colonialism; ethno-politics and interethnic relations; archaeology; cultural heritage, museums and modernity, and more; especially East and Southeast Asia (China, Burma, Cambodia, Taiwan, Japan, etc.); also Europe, and the world at large.

### Publications

Books

- *Stories from an Ancient Land: Perspectives on Wa History and Culture.* New York/Oxford: Berghahn: August 2021. Series: Asian Anthropologies. ISBN  978-1-78920-887-0; eISBN 978-1-78920-888-7. <https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/FiskesjoStories>
- Interview podcast, on *Stories from an Ancient Land: Perspectives on Wa History and Culture*. New Books Network / Southeast Asian Studies. Hosted by Nick Cheesman. Published Jan. 1, 2023: <https://newbooksnetwork.com/stories-from-an-ancient-land>
- *China Before China: Johan Gunnar Andersson, Ding Wenjiang, and the Discovery of China’s Prehistory.*  Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 2004.
- *The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, the Death of Teddy's Bear and the Sovereign Exception of Guantánamo*.  Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003.

Book Chapters

- "The Ritual Language of Forced Confessions in China.” Oxford Handbook of Ritual Language, ed. David Tavarez. Oxford: Oxford University Press, January 25, 2025, Chapter 11, pp. 228–248. ISBN: 9780192868091. <https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-ritual-language-9780192868091>
- “Silence or Bravery: Museums Facing Contemporary Atrocities in China and Burma.” In: Museums and Mass Violence. Edited by Paul Morrow, Amy Sodaro, and Leora Kahn. London: Routledge, 2024. ISBN 9781032605449. <https://www.routledge.com/Museums-and-Mass-Violence/Morrow-Sodaro-Kahn/p/book/9781032605449>
- "Ancient DNA and the Politics of Ethnicity in Neo-Nationalist China." In Critical Perspectives on Ancient DNA, eds. Daniel Strand & Anna Källén, & Charlotte Mulcore. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, July 2024, 145-166. Open access: Ch. 7, <https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/5800/Critical-Perspectives-on-Ancient-DNA>
- "Wa History: Agency and Victimization." In Chasing Traces: History and Ethnography in the Uplands of Socialist Asia, edited by Jean Michaud and Pierre Petit. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2024, 77-98. <https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/chasing-traces-history-and-ethnography-in-the-uplands-of-socialist-asia/>
- “[Wa Communities in the China-Myanmar Borderlands](https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Foxfordre.com%2Fasianhistory%2Fview%2F10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780190277727.001.0001%2Facrefore-9780190277727-e-857&data=05%7C02%7Cmagnus.fiskesjo%40cornell.edu%7Cd753ca5e2a664aa00e5808dc49bf610a%7C5d7e43661b9b45cf8e79b14b27df46e1%7C0%7C0%7C638466333514882796%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=KgErwf85A53R7QkznrpIIUw2pJg6y%2BOwniTUMLjmLDc%3D&reserved=0).” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Oxford University Press. Article published March 20, 2024. doi: <https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.857>
- "State Strategies to Implement (and Hide) Genocide in China and Myanmar, Since 2017.” Invited contribution, to [*Handbook of Genocide Studies*, e](https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/usd/handbook-of-genocide-studies-9781800379336.html)dited by David J. Simon and Leora Kahn. Cheltenham, Glos [England]: Edwar Elgar Publishing, 2023, pp. 123-41.
- "Identities and Polities in the Maelstrom of World-System Cycles: The Wa of the Burma-China borderlands." Chapter 25, in *Routledge Handbook of the Modern Anthropology of Highland Asia*, ed. Michael Heneise and Jelle JP Wouters. London: Routledge, 2022, 339-350.
- "Agamben and the Chinese Forced-Confession Ritual." Chapter 2, in *Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis,* ed.  Nils Bubandt and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer. London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 27-47.
- "Le Xinjiang chinois, "nouvelle frontière" de l'épuration nationale" [China's Xinjiang: The 'New Frontier' of National Purification]. In: Anne Cheng, ed. *Penser en Chine*. Paris: Gallimard, 2021, pp. 391-433. Collection Folio essais (n° 669). ISBN: 9782072870927. In French. <http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Folio/Folio-essais/Penser-en-Chine>
- "Who's Afraid of Confucius? Fear of Encompassment in the Global Debates over the Confucius Institutes." Chapter 9, in Franck Billé and Sören Urbansky, eds., Yellow Perils: China Narratives in the Contemporary World. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018, 221-245. Open access (2022): <https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/81591> ; <http://hdl.handle.net/10125/81591>
- ["China's Animal Neighbors](http://www.highlandasia.net/projects/artn.html; http://en.aup.nl/books/9789462982581-the-art-of-neighbouring.html)." In: *The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China's Borders*. Eds. Martin Saxer and Zhang Juan. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 2017.
- ["Chinese Autochthony and the Eurasian Context: Archaeology, Mythmaking and Johan Gunnar Andersson's 'Western Origins](http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004325470).'" In: *Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics: Rethinking Temporality and Community in Eurasian Archaeology*. Eds. Kathryn O. Weber, et al. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016, 303-320. (Proceedings from the Fourth Conference on Eurasian Archaeology, 2012).
- "Art and Science as competing values in the formation of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities." In: *Collectors, Collections, and Collecting the Arts of China: Histories and Challenges*. Ed. Lai, Guolong.  Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, 67-98.
- "Gifts and debts: The morality of fieldwork in the Wa lands on the China-Burma frontier." In: *Red Stamps and Gold Stars: Fieldwork Dilemmas in Upland Socialist Asia*. Ed. Turner, Sarah. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013, 61-79.
- "Science across borders: Johan Gunnar Andersson and Ding Wenjiang." In Denise M. Glover, Stevan Harrell, Charles McKhann, and Margaret Swain, eds. *Explorers and Scientists in China's Borderlands, 1880-1950*. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011, 240-66. ISBN: 9780295991177
- "Giorgio Agamben och den kommande gemenskapen" [Giorgio Agamben and the coming community]. In: *Sociologik: Tio essäer om socialitet och tänkande* [Sociologics. Ten essays on sociality and thought]. Eds. Christian Abrahamsson et al. Stockholm: Santérus, 2011, 53-87. In Swedish
- "The Politics of Cultural Heritage." In: *Reclaiming Chinese Society: The New Social Activism*. London: Routledge, 2010, pp. 225-245.
- "The Autonomy of Naming: Kinship, Power and Ethnonymy in the Wa lands of the Southeast Asia-China Frontiers." In: *Personal Names in Asia: History, Culture and Identity*. Singapore: University of Singapore Press, 2009, pp. 150-174.

Webcast events/lectures/interviews, selection:

- “Uyghur Children in China’s Genocide” symposium, Friday, Oct. 27, 2023, 1-5 p.m. Goldwin Smith Hall, room 76, Cornell University. Recording: <https://www.cornell.edu/video/uyghur-children-symposium-2023>
- “How the Chinese Communist Party ran a global propaganda campaign against the Dalai Lama.” May 24, 2023. Online interview, Global Order [New Delhi]. 
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJVWOWDHmhU>
- "Chen Quanguo and Reinhard Heydrich: Parallel Features of Communist Chinese and Nazi German genocidal and forced-assimilation policies." Presentation at "Mapping China’s footprint in the world III;" Sinopsis workshop on the CCP’s global influence, Prague, Oct. 12-13, 2020. <https://sinopsis.cz/en/workshop3/> [recording for DAY 1, 2:27:30 2:54:50]; + another version of the same recording: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCOxTS-D0NM> (2:59:45-3:27:00)
- ["TV Tears Made of Fear: Anatomy of the Spectacle of Power in China's Forced Confessions."](https://vimeo.com/194054432) Cornell Contemporary China Initiative lecture series. Cornell University, November 14, 2016.
- ["Heritage and Ancestors: The Politics of Chinese Museums and Historical Memory."](https://ieas.berkeley.edu/file/1115) Elvera Kwang Siam Lim Memorial Lecture/Center for Chinese Studies, University of California-Berkeley, November 6, 2015.

Academic Articles, and more:

- "Comparing genocides: Forced assimilation in Nazi Europe and East Turkestan (Xinjiang), China." Sinopsis [Prague, Czech Republic]. 26 September 2025. <https://sinopsis.cz/en/comparing-genocides-forced-assimilation-in-nazi-europe-and-east-turkestan-xinjiang-china/>
- "Kinas folkmord i Östturkestan." Aiolos 78–79 (2024), "Centralasien." Pp. 178-187. <https://aiolos.info/aiolos-78-79-centralasien/>  [Article in Swedish on the historical background to China's genocide against the Uyghurs]
- "从帝国遗产到 DNA 政治：中国民族主义与少数民族政策的深层逻辑. [From Imperial Legacy to DNA Politics: The Deeper Logic of Chinese Nationalism and Minority Policies]. Interviewed by Haofeng Yu.《中国民主季刊》2024年第四季 China Journal of Democracy 2.4, October 2024, pp. 26-48. <https://chinademocrats.org/?p=4069>
- "China, Empire, and World Anthropology." Anthropology Today 40.4 (2024), 27–28. Published Sept. 4, 2024.  <https://rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8322.12906>
- "China’s Genocide Tourism Strategy: The Use of Tourism as a Propaganda Weapon is An Old Trick of Authoritarian Regimes." The Diplomat, Aug. 19, 2024. <https://thediplomat.com/2024/08/chinas-genocide-tourism-strategy/>
- "Mass Detention and Forced Assimilation of Uyghur Children in China." By Magnus Fiskesjö and Rukiye Turdush. CETNI [Centre for East Turkistan National Interest], July 19, 2024. [https://cetni.org/?P=7053](https://cetni.org/?p=7053)
- “Self-kidnappings by Chinese Students Abroad: Mystery Solved. The puzzle presented by these incidents can only be understood in the context of China’s police brutality and growing transnational repression.” *The Diplomat*, April 8, 2024. <https://thediplomat.com/2024/04/self-kidnappings-by-chinese-students-abroad-mystery-solved/>
- “Cambodia’s Heritage Repatriation Successes in Global Perspective.” Southeast Asia Program Bulletin, Fall 2023, 18-19 (also note, pp. 16-17, “Visiting Cambodia and Angkor”). <https://hdl.handle.net/1813/113401>
- "Now You See Me, Now You Don’t – Vanishing Acts of Chinese Companies in Xinjiang.” The Diplomat, 8 June 2023. <https://thediplomat.com/2023/06/now-you-see-me-now-you-dont-chinese-companies-vanishing-acts-in-xinjiang/>
- "How a CCP Propaganda Campaign Targeted the Dalai Lama: The latest smear campaign succeeded beyond China’s wildest dreams, by playing into Western ignorance about Tibetan culture – and self-righteous “cancel culture” on social media.”  The Diplomat, May 20, 2023. <https://thediplomat.com/2023/05/how-a-ccp-propaganda-campaign-targeted-the-dalai-lama/>
- + [Japanese version, June 1, 2023]: 「ダライ・ラマは小児性愛者」 中国が流した「偽情報」に簡単に騙された欧米...自分こそ正義と信じる人の残念さ - MANIPULATING BIASES - マグヌス・フィスケジョ（コーネル大学准教授、人類学）, 2023年6月1日（木）. <https://www.newsweekjapan.jp/stories/world/2023/06/post-101784_5.php>
- "Genocide and Cultural Genocide in China." YetAgain [UK], June 28, 2022. <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368337289_Genocide_and_Cultural_Genocide_in_China_Yet_Again_UK_28_June_2022>
- "Bulldozing Culture: China’s Systematic Destruction of Uyghur Heritage Reveals Genocidal Intent." *Cultural Property News*, June 23, 2021. <https://culturalpropertynews.org/bulldozing-culture-chinas-systematic-destruction-of-uyghur-heritage-reveals-genocidal-intent/>
- "Uyghur Women in China’s Genocide." By Rukiye Turdush and Magnus Fiskesjö.  Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 15.1 (2021): 22–43. <https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol15/iss1/6/>
- Racism with Chinese Characteristics: How China’s Imperial Legacy Underpins State Racism and Violence in Xinjiang." China Channel, *Los Angeles Review of Books*, January 22, 2021. New link 2022: <https://chinachannel.lareviewofbooks.org/2021/01/22/chinese-racism/>
- "Forced Confessions as Identity Conversion in China's Concentration Camps." *Monde Chinois Nouvelle Asie*2020/2 (n° 62), 28-43. Special issue on “Les mécanismes de la répression en région ouïghoure [The mechanisms of repression in the Uyghur region]," ed. Vanessa Frangville and Jean-Yves Heurtebise. <https://www.cairn.info/revue-monde-chinois-2020-2-page-28.htm>
- ["Research ethics, violated."](https://allegralaboratory.net/research-ethics-violated/) Allegra Lab, One-shots, Essay. May 7, 2020.
- ["Cultural genocide is the new genocide."](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/ www.penopp.org/articles/cultural-genocide-new-genocide) Pen/Opp, May 5, 2020.
- ["Bury Me With My Comrades: Memorializing Mao's Sent-Down Youth."](https://apjjf.org/2018/14/Fiskesjo.html) Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 16, Issue 14, Number 4 (July 15, 2018).
- ["Confessions Made in China."](http://www.chinoiresie.info/PDF/Made-in-China-01-2018.pdf) Made in China 3.1 (January-March 2018), p. 18-22; 108-109 (list of references).<https://madeinchinajournal.com/2018/05/17/confessions-made-in-china/>
- [The Return of the Show Trial: China’s Televised “Confessions.”](http://apjjf.org/2017/13/Fiskesjo.html)  Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 15, Issue 13, Number 1. (June 25, 2017).
- [“The Legacy of the Chinese Empires: Beyond ‘the West and the Rest.’”](http://www.asian-studies.org/Publications/EAA/About) Education About Asia 22.1 (Spring 2017), 6-10. Special issue on “Contemporary Postcolonial Asia.”
- [“People First: The Wa World of Spirits and Other Enemies.”](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00664677.2017.1315330) Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology. Published online: 19 Apr 2017.
- "Self and Subjectivity in a World of Diasporas: Nicholas Tapp's Anthropology of Hmong Identities." Journal of Social Science (Chiang Mai University, Thailand), (Special issue: "Ethnicity and Mobility: Nicholas Tapp's Anthropology," ed. Aranya Siriphon). 28 (2017), 125-148.
- "Foreword." In Samak Kosem, ed. Border Twists and Burma Trajectories: Perceptions, Reforms, and Adaptations. Chiang Mai: Center for ASEAN Studies, Chiang Mai University, 2016, pp. iii-v.
- "Lyxkonsumtion och utrotningskrig" [Luxury consumption and wars of extinction]. Kina-Rapport (Göteborg: Svensk-Kinesiska Föreningen) no. 4 (2015), 32-35. (In Swedish; on the Chinese smuggling and trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn from Africa)
- "Terra-cotta Conquest: The First Emperor's Clay Army's Blockbuster Tour of the World." Verge: Studies in Global Asias 1 (2015): 162-183.
- "Universal Museums." Article for "World Heritage" section, ed. Helaine Silverman, in \_Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology\_. Claire Smith, general editor. New York: Springer, 2014, pp. 7494-7500.
- ["Oscar Montelius and Chinese archaeology."](https://www.archaeologybulletin.org/articles/10.5334/bha.2410/) Co-authored with Chen Xingcan. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology [Melbourne, Australia] 24:10 (2014).
- "Wa Grotesque: Headhunting Theme Parks and the Chinese Nostalgia for Primitive Contemporaries." *Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology* 79 (2014): 497-523.
- "Introduction to Wa Studies." *Journal of Burma Studies* 17 (2013): 1 -27.
- "Outlaws, Barbarians, Slaves: Critical Reflections on Agamben's homo sacer." *Journal of Ethnographic Theory* 2 (2012): 161-180.
- "Slavery as the Commodification of People: Wa 'Slaves' and Their Chinese 'Sisters.'" *Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology* 59 (2011): 3-18.
- "The Reluctant Sovereign: New Adventures of the US Presidential Thanksgiving Turkey." *Anthropology Today* 26 (2010): 13-17.
- "Mining, History, and the Anti-State Wa: The Politics of Autonomy Between Burma and China." *Journal of Global History* 5 (2010): 241-264.
- "Participant Intoxication and Self–Other Dynamics in the Wa Context."  *The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology* 11 (2010): 111-127.
- "The global repatriation debate and the new 'universal museums,'" in The Handbook of Postcolonialism and Archaeology, eds. Jane Lydon and Uzma Rizvi. World Archaeological Congress Research Handbooks. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, 2010, in Part III, "Addressing/Redressing the Past: Restitution, Repatriation, and Ethics," 303-310.
- "The Trouble with World Culture: Recent Museum Developments in Sweden." *Anthropology Today* 23.5 (October 2007), 6–11.
- "Collections of Chinese Antiquities Outside China: Problems and Hopes." *Public Archaeolog*y 5 (2006): 111-126.
- "Rescuing the Empire: Chinese Nation-Building in the Twentieth Century." *European Journal of East Asian Studies* 5 (2006): 15-44.
- "A Foreign Bird in a Golden Cage: Sweden's Asia Collections." *Res Publica* 65 (2005): 68-80. In Swedish.
- "Lost Civilizations, Lost Choices." *Dushu* 4 (2003), 72-75. In Chinese.
- "The Barbarian Borderland and the Chinese Imagination -- Travellers in Wa Country." *Inner Asia* 4.1 (2002): 81-99.
- "Rising From Blood-Stained Fields: Royal Hunting and State Formation in Shang China." *Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities* 72 (2001): 48-192.
- "The barbarian borderland and the Chinese imagination—Travellers in Wa country." Inner Asia [ISSN: 1464-8172] 4.1 (2002): 81-99. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/23615425>
- "The Question of the Farmer Fortress: On the ethno-archaeology of fortified settlements in northern Southeast Asia." *Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association* 21. Special issue: Indo-Pacific Prehistory: The Melaka Papers V, 124-31.
- "On the 'Raw' and the 'Cooked' Barbarians of Imperial China." Inner Asia 1.2 (1999), 139-68. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/23615574> \

**Opinion pieces incl.** on the Chinese genocide against the Uyghurs since 2017; on China's kidnapping of Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, since 2015, etc. --Samples:

- "Princeton Universitys förlagschef deltar i Kinas propagandacirkus i folkmordets Xinjiang." Kina-Media, 10 juli 2025. <https://kinamedia.se/2025/07/10/princeton-universitys-forlagschef-deltar-i-kinas-propagandacirkus-i-folkmordets-xinjiang/>  [in Swedish, on the director of Princeton University Press covering for the Uyghur genocide]
- "Soldaters dödande av civila i Xinjiang läcker ut på Kinas sociala medier." KinaMedia, 9 oktober 2024. <https://kinamedia.se/2024/10/09/soldaters-dodande-av-civila-i-xinjiang-lacker-ut-pa-kinas-sociala-medier/>  [in Swedish, on the Chinese soldiers chatting online about how they massacred civilians in Xinjiang, some seemingly regretting it]
- Guest Room: Cornell Should Suspend Its China Projects.” Cornell Daily Sun, [27 aug. 2019]. <https://cornellsun.com/2019/08/27/guest-room-cornell-should-suspend-its-china-projects/>
- "With Forced Confessions, the Chinese Regime Pushes a Public Lie." The Globe and Mail [Toronto], Opinion, 23 August 2019. <https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-with-forced-confessions-china-pushes-a-public-lie/>
- "South Africa should take the lead in criticising the cultural genocide in Xinjiang." OP-ED, The Daily Maverick [Johannesburg], 28 July 2019. <https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-07-28-south-africa-should-take-the-lead-in-criticising-the-cultural-genocide-in-xinjiang/>
- "China's Thousandfold Guantánamos." With China's assault on scores of leading academics and intellectuals, business as usual is no longer possible, writes Magnus Fiskesjö. Inside Higher Ed, April 8, 2019. <https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/04/08/universities-should-not-ignore-chinas-persecution-scores-leading-academics-opinion>
- "Of Kings and Concentration Camps: Xinjiang and Norway." Asia Dialogue—The Online Magazine of the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute. Dec. 17, 2018. <http://theasiadialogue.com/2018/12/17/of-kings-and-concentration-camps-xinjiang-and-norway/>
- "How Beijing is using the Nazi propaganda playbook to justify its concentration camps to the world." Hong Kong Free Press. 27 October 2018.  <https://www.hongkongfp.com/2018/10/27/beijing-using-nazi-propaganda-playbook-justify-concentration-camps-world/>
- "The Xinjiang camps as a 'Stanford Prison Experiment.'" Asia Dialogue—The Online Magazine of the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute. Oct. 24, 2018. <http://theasiadialogue.com/2018/10/24/the-xinjiang-camps-as-a-stanford-prison-experiment/>

Select book (and exhibit) reviews:

- Review of Bedross Der Matossian, ed. *Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century* (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2023). *Journal of Peace Research* [PRIO, Oslo], Book Notes. 29 September 2025. <https://www.prio.org/journals/jpr/booknotes/453>
- Review of John Beck, *Those Who Should Be Seized Should be Seized: China's Relentless Persecution of Uyghurs and Other Ethnic Minorities*. *Journal of Peace Research* [PRIO, Oslo], Book Notes. Aug. 5, 2025. <https://www.prio.org/journals/jpr/booknotes/451>
- Review of Kun Qian, *Imperial-Time-Order: Literature, Intellectual History, and China’s Road to Empire*. *Modern Chinese Literature and Culture*, May 15, 2025. <https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/fiskesjo/>
- Review of Adam Kuper, *The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions* (London: Profile Books, 2023). *Migrating Minds: Journal of Cultural Cosmopolitanism* 2.2 (2024), 116-119. <https://repository.digital.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/1100006>
- "Cycles of History: Review Essay on Alfred McCoy's To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change." *International Institute for Asian Studies Newsletter*, June 2024. [https://www.iias.asia/the-review/cycles-history](https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iias.asia%2Fthe-review%2Fcycles-history&data=05%7C02%7Cmagnus.fiskesjo%40CORNELL.EDU%7C6d4690f86f8b49601e3608dc90080e9b%7C5d7e43661b9b45cf8e79b14b27df46e1%7C0%7C0%7C638543611509490831%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=SR0lsYPZDUEsa9wqQ7xJYNPxk81FhRzBQ59G6REBj%2FA%3D&reserved=0)
- Review of Bertil Lintner, *The Wa of Myanmar and China’s Quest for Global Dominance* (Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books: 2021), *Journal of Asian Studies* 82.4 (2023), 759-61.
- Review of two books:  by Darren Byler, *In the Camps: Life in China’s High-Tech Penal Colony*(New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), and by Gulbahar Haitiwaji, *How I Survived a Chinese "Re-education" Camp: A Uyghur Woman's Story* (New York and Oakland: Seven Stories Press, 2022). *Journal of Asian Studies*82.4 (2023), 663-665.
- Review of Gregory Forth, *Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid*(New York: Pegasus,2020; 336 pp. ISBN 978-163-936-143-4). *Kvartal*, 1 dec. 2022. <https://kvartal.se/artiklar/har-paabo-fel-ar-vi-inte-ensamma-kvar/> [In Swedish].
- Review of Justin M. Jacobs, *The Compensations of Plunder: How China Lost Its Treasures* (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020; vii, 348 pp. ISBN 978-0-226-71201-7). *American Historical Review* 127.3 (Sept. 2022), 1496–1497. Published: 29 November 2022.
- Review of John McWhorter, *Woke Racism:* *How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America* (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2021). *Kvartal*, 11 augusti 2022. <https://kvartal.se/artiklar/antirasismen-som-infantiliserar-svarta/>  [In Swedish].
- Review of Enze Han, *Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019; 240 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-006078-7). *South East Asia Research* [Great Britain], Online, 24 Feb 2021.
- Review of Jonathan Friedman, *PC Worlds: Political Correctness and Rising Elites at the End of Hegemony* (New York: Berghahn, 2019). *Kvartal*, 8 sept. 2020. <https://kvartal.se/artiklar/politiskt-korrekt-ar-ett-maktmedel/>
- Review of Haiming Yan, World Heritage Craze in China: Universal Discourse, National Culture, and Local Memory. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78533-804-5). *Asian Perspectives* 58.2 (2019), 401-404.
- Review article: ["Ancient China reconsidered."](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/ancient-china-reconsidered/7B1B9D90AADFCBDE5F8ADC723F29C459) Review of Katheryn M. Linduff, Yan Sun, Wei Cao, & Yuanqing Liu, *Ancient China and its Eurasian neighbors: Artifacts, Identity, and Death in the Frontier, 3000-700 BCE* (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Roderick Campbell, *Violence, Kinship and the Early Chinese State: The Shang and Their World* (Cambridge, 2018); and Xiaolong Wu, *Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China* (Cambridge, 2017). *Antiquity*, Volume 92, Issue 366 (Dec. 2018), pp. 1671-1673.
- Review of Alice Yao, *The Ancient Highlands of Southwest China: From Bronze Age to the Han Empire* (Oxford 2016); & Erica Brindley, *Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE-50 CE* (Cambridge 2015), for the *Zhejiang University Journal of Art and Archaeology* (Hangzhou, China), Vol. 3 (2018), 260-272.
- Review of Pál Nyíri and Danielle Tan, eds., *Chinese Encounters in Southeast Asia: How People, Money, Ideas from China are Changing a Region* (Seattle, WA and London: University of Washington Press, 2017). ISBN: 9780295999302; 9780295999296. *China Quarterly* 234 (2018), 577-578.
- [Review of Craig Clunas, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences](http://theartnewspaper.com) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). *The Art Newspaper,* 295 (Nov. 2017), p. 22.
- Review of Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Flowers That Kill: Communicative Opacity in Political Spaces (Stanford 2015). *American Anthropologist* 118.3 (2016), 685-686.
- [Review of Tamara T. Chin, Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911816000693) (Cambridge, 2014). *Journal of Asian Studies* 75.3 (2016), 806-807.
- Review of Sarah Turner, Christine Bonnin, and Jean Michaud, Frontier Livelihoods: Hmong in the Sino-Vietnamese Borderlands (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015). *Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute* 22.3 (2016), 750-751.
- [Review of David Faure and Ho Ts'ui-p'ing, eds. Chieftains into Ancestors: Imperial Expansion and Indigenous Society in Southwest China](http://tibetanplateau.wikischolars.columbia.edu/Volume+Forty) (Vancouver 2013). *Asian Highlands Perspectives* 40 (2016), 479-488.
- Review essay: "The Museum Boom in China and the State efforts to Control History" (on Marzia Varutti, *Museums in China: The Politics of Representation after Mao* [Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, 2014]; Kirk Denton, *Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory & the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China* [Honolulu, 2014]; Amy Jane Barnes, *Museum Representations of Maoist China: From Cultural Revolution to Commie Kitsch* [Surrey, UK, 2014]. *Museum Anthropology* Review 9.2 (2015), 96-105.
- ["Hail to the King!"](http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/eac.2014.18) Review of two books by David N. Keightley: *Working for His Majesty: Research Notes on Labor Mobilization in Late Shang China (ca.1200-1045 B.C.), as Seen in the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions, with Particular Attention to Handicraft Industries, Agriculture, Warfare, Hunting, Construction, and the Shang's Legacies* (Berkeley: University of California-Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 2012); and *The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, ca. 1200-1045 B.C.* (Berkeley: University of California-Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000). Early China 37.1 (2014), 567-573. DOI: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/eac.2014.1>
- Review of *Unearthing the Nation: Modern Geology and Nationalism in Republican China*. By Grace Yen SHEN. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. *Journal of Asian Studies* 73.4 (2014), 1120-1122. DOI: <http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911814001259>
- Review of Mandy Sadan, *Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma*. (Oxford & London: Oxford University Press & the British Academy, 2013; with an accompanying website, ["Research Notes: Fieldwork Notes, Photographs and Translations"](http://mandysadan.weebly.com/) ). [Thailand-Laos-Cambodia [TLC] network/New Mandala Review LXX.](http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2014/05/16/review-of-being-and-becoming-kachin-tlc-nmrev-lxx/)  In: *New Mandala: New Perspectives on Southeast Asia*, May 16, 2014.
- [Review of Michael Oppitz et al, eds. *Naga Identities*](http://plateauculture.org/writing/review-naga-identitites)*: Changing Local Cultures in the Northeast of India* (Gent: Snoeck Publishers, 2008). *Asian Highlands Perspectives* 28 (2013): 299-304.
- Review of Gunnar Skirbekk, *Multiple Modernities: A Tale of Scandinavian Experiences* (Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. Press, 2011). Journal of World History 24.3 (2013), 707-10.
- Review of Berma Klein Goldewijk et al, eds. *Cultural Emergency in Conflict and Disaster* (Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2011). Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology (2012); iFirst article, pp. 1–3.
- Review of Michael Keevak, *Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). *Journal of World History* 23.3 (2012), 676-80.
- Review of Koen Wellens, *Religious Revival in the Tibetan Borderlands: The Premi of Southwest China* (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010). Anthropos 107.1 (2012), 314-15.
- Review of Flora Sapio, *Sovereign Power and the Law in China: Zones of Exception in the Criminal Justice System* (Leiden: Brill, 2010). Journal of Asian Studies 70.4 (2011), 1143-44.
- Review essay, "Writing identities—or weaving the social fabric?" on Writing With Thread: Traditional Textiles of Southwest Chinese Minorities by Angela Sheng, et al. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Art Gallery, 2009. *Museum Anthropology Review* 4.2 (2010), 196-201. <http://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/mar/issue/archive>
- Review of Perry Johansson, Sinofilerna. Kinakunskap, samlande och politik från Sven Hedin till Jan Myrdal [The sinophiles: China studies, collecting and politics from Sven Hedin to Jan Myrdal]. Stockholm: Carlssons, 2008. *China Review International*16.2 (2009), 216-219. (Issue appeared in 2010)
- "The Reappearance of Yangshao? Reflections on Unmourned Artifacts." (Review essay, on the 2007 Chinese documentary Cutting through the fog of history: The re-appearance of the Yangshao cultural relics). *China Heritage Quarterly* 23 (2010) <http://www.chinaheritagequarterly.org/scholarship.php?searchterm=023_yangshao.inc&issue=023>
- Review of *Navigators of the Contemporary: Why Ethnography Matters,*by David Westbrook. Journal of World History 21.1 (2010), 172-76.
- Review of *Fieldwork Connections: The Fabric of Ethnographic Collaboration in China and America,* by Bamo Ayi, Stevan Harrell, & Ma Lunzy. Journal of Asian Studies 68.3 (2009), 927-28.
- Review of *Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000-250 BC)*by Lothar von Falkenhausen. American Anthropologist 110.1 (2008), 150–51.
- Review of the exhibit "Treasures of the Sons of Heaven: The Imperial Collection from the National Palace Museum, Taipei," Altes Museum, Berlin, 2003. East Asian Journal [London], 1.2 (2003/2), 98-100.
- Review of *1421: The Year China Discovered the World* by Gavin Menzies. Axess [Stockholm, Sweden], February 25, 2003, 42-43 (In Swedish).
- Review of *Exploring China's Past: New Discoveries and Studies in Archaeology and Art,* ed. R. Whitfield and Wang Tao (London, 2001). Arts Asiatiques 57 (2002), 240-41.
- Review of *Leshi yanjiu* [Studies on the History of the Le Kingdom] and *Daizu shenling chongbai mizong* [Dai spirits worship] by Zhu Depu. *Crossroads–An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies* 12.2 (1999), 115-18.
- Review of An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of China, by James S. Olson. H-NET Book Review, published by H-Asia, the H-Net list for Asian History and Culture, Dec. 15, 1998; archived at: <http://h-net.msu.edu/~asia/>
- Review of *The Bronze Age of Southeast Asia* by Charles Higham. *Journal of Asian Studies* 56.1 (1997), 251-53.

## In the news

- [Ethnic unity law contradicts China’s constitution, puts premium on assimilation](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/news/ethnic-unity-law-contradicts-chinas-constitution-puts-premium-assimilation)
- [Uyghur Human Rights Project bibliography](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/news/uyghur-human-rights-project-bibliography)
- [Uyghur children in China’s genocide: A symposium](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/news/uyghur-children-chinas-genocide-symposium)
- [Backed by powerful allies, Myanmar generals take cues from U.S. events](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/news/backed-powerful-allies-myanmar-generals-take-cues-us-events)
- [Cornell library gains permanent access to genocide archive](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/news/cornell-library-gains-permanent-access-genocide-archive)
- [ISS grants jump-start new social science research](https://anthropology.cornell.edu/news/iss-grants-jump-start-new-social-science-research)

## Courses - Fall 2025

- [ANTHR 3443 : Anthropology of Children](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/3443)
- [ANTHR 3552 : Genocide Today: The Erasure of Cultures](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/3552)
- [ANTHR 4910 : Independent Study: Undergrad I](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/4910)
- [ANTHR 4920 : Independent Study: Undergrad II](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/4920)
- [ANTHR 4983 : Honors Thesis Research](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/4983)
- [ANTHR 6443 : Anthropology of Children](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/6443)
- [ANTHR 6552 : Genocide Today: The Erasure of Cultures](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/6552)
- [ANTHR 7520 : Southeast Asia: Readings in Special Problems](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/7520)
- [ANTHR 7550 : East Asia: Readings in Special Problems](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/7550)
- [ANTHR 7910 : Independent Study: Grad I](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/7910)
- [ANTHR 7920 : Independent Study: Grad II](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/7920)
- [ANTHR 7930 : Independent Study: Grad III](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ANTHR/7930)
- [ARKEO 3000 : Undergraduate Independent Study in Archaeology and Related Fields](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ARKEO/3000)
- [ARKEO 4981 : Honors Thesis Research](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ARKEO/4981)
- [ARKEO 4982 : Honors Thesis Write-Up](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ARKEO/4982)
- [ARKEO 6000 : Graduate Independent Study in Archaeology](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ARKEO/6000)
- [ARKEO 8901 : Master's Thesis](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/FA25/class/ARKEO/8901)

## Courses - Spring 2026

- [ANTHR 2400 : Cultural Diversity and Contemporary Issues](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/2400)
- [ANTHR 3437 : 21st Century Authoritarianism](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/3437)
- [ANTHR 4910 : Independent Study: Undergrad I](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/4910)
- [ANTHR 4920 : Independent Study: Undergrad II](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/4920)
- [ANTHR 4984 : Honors Thesis Write-Up](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/4984)
- [ANTHR 6437 : 21st Century Authoritarianism](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/6437)
- [ANTHR 7520 : Southeast Asia: Readings in Special Problems](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/7520)
- [ANTHR 7550 : East Asia: Readings in Special Problems](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/7550)
- [ANTHR 7910 : Independent Study: Grad I](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/7910)
- [ANTHR 7920 : Independent Study: Grad II](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/7920)
- [ANTHR 7930 : Independent Study: Grad III](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ANTHR/7930)
- [ARKEO 3000 : Undergraduate Independent Study in Archaeology and Related Fields](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ARKEO/3000)
- [ARKEO 4981 : Honors Thesis Research](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ARKEO/4981)
- [ARKEO 4982 : Honors Thesis Write-Up](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ARKEO/4982)
- [ARKEO 6000 : Graduate Independent Study in Archaeology](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ARKEO/6000)
- [ARKEO 8902 : Master's Thesis](https://classes.cornell.edu/browse/roster/SP26/class/ARKEO/8902)