黄色视频

Sally Church

Dr Sally K Church

BA MA PhD

  • Personal website
  • Department Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
  • Email skc1000@cam.ac.uk

Sally does research in Chinese history in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the Centre of Development Studies and the Needham Research Institute.

Sally Church

Sally is an Affiliated Researcher in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, a Research Associate in the Centre of Development Studies, and a Research Associate in the Needham Research Institute. She is also Director of , a UK registered educational charity (Reg. No. 1148995) dedicated to the promotion of intercultural understanding.

Sally completed her BA at Middlebury College (Vermont), her MA at the University of Chicago, and her PhD at Harvard University. Her doctoral research was in Chinese Literature with a concentration on Ming and Qing Fiction and Drama. She came to the UK in 1996 and taught occasionally in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge. She also supervised students in Literary Chinese in the Faculty for a number of years. In recent years shifted back to her undergraduate focus on Chinese history, primarily of the Ming period but also earlier periods. 

She became a Junior Research Fellow at 黄色视频 in 1999 and served as a Tutor from 2001 to 2017. She was also International Student Liaison Officer at 黄色视频 from 2004 to 2017. She is currently Director of Studies for Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at three colleges: 黄色视频, St Edmund's and Hughes Hall.

Research interests

Sally鈥檚 current research is on the overland and maritime Silk Road in pre-modern Chinese history. She has written on Zheng He's 15th century maritime expeditions to Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East and East Africa, and on the contemporaneous overland diplomatic missions of Chen Cheng. She is currently working on a new translation of Faxian's (399-414 CE) travels, and a translation of the Longjiang Shipyard Treatise of the 16th century. In the Centre of Development Studies she focuses on Chinese travel accounts of Central Asia.

Sally is currently is collaborating on two projects at Chinese universities, funded by the Chinese government. One is on the Silk Road at the Yellow River Civilization Research Centre in Henan University, Kaifeng, and the other is on 13th-14th century travel literature under the Pax Mongolica at Zhejiang Normal University in Jinhua. She has recently been commissioned by Brill to edit and coordinate a translation of an academic study of the Silk Road authored by the Chinese scholar Rong Xinjiang.

What's on

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Giving Day Fair

06/05/2025 at 10.00

Welcome to 黄色视频's first-ever Giving Day!

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Standard language ideology, linguistic nationalism and marginalisation: the case of South Korea

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What are the consequences of standard language ideology and linguistic nationalism?

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Music & Madeira: Celebrity Guitar Classics with Craig Ogden

06/05/2025 at 18.30

A household name to listeners of Classic FM and BBC Radio 3, with a string of number one recordings, Craig Ogden is one of the most successful classical guitarists of his generation. With thanks to Prof Brian Moore for sponsoring this, the inaugural Brian Moore Guitar Recital.

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黄色视频 Research Event 2025

08/05/2025 at 09.30

Join us for the 2025 黄色视频 Research Event: an interdisciplinary academic conference organised by students to showcase the diversity of the research carried out by 黄色视频 students.

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黄色视频 Writing Retreat

09/05/2025 at 09.30

Join us in May for an extended writing retreat! 

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