Maddalena BARENGHI

Areas of expertise and research interests

I am a historian specializing in premodern East Asia and imperial historiography. Currently, I am researching the southern Central Asian and Inner Asian frontier regions of the Tabgach and Tang empires (5th-10th centuries). My work focuses on the interaction with/assimilation of Turkic agropastoral and military settlements into the frontier military institutions and economy of the Tang. While most scholarship has emphasized ethnicity, diplomacy, and political relations between Inner Asian elites and the Tang state, my current work focuses on the economic and ecological dimensions of this interaction. I am also interested in state- and military-sponsored agriculture in the frontier regions, the intersections between imperial institutions and environmental adaptation, and how these institutions responded to and were shaped by local ecological conditions and constraints.

ORCID

ResearchGate

Academia.edu

Current position

Associate Professor, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Director of MaP-Centre for Global Europe-Asia Connections, DSAAM

PI of NICHE Research Cluster "Environments and States in East Asia"

Past professional experience and postgraduate studies

Tenure-track Researcher (RTDB), Department of Asian and North African Studies, Ca' Foscari University of Venice (01.12.2019-30.11.2022)

Assistant Professor (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), Institute of Sinology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (2018-2019)

Assistant Professor (Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin), Department of History, University of Salzburg (2016-2018)

Postdoctoral Fellow (Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange), Institute of Sinology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (2015-2016)

Ph.D. in co-supervision, Ca' Foscari University of Venice and Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (2010-2014)

MA Sinology, SOAS, University of London (2009-2010)

Publications in preparation

“State and Environment in the Ordos Loop (8th-early 9th centuries),” in Nicola Di Cosmo, David Bello, Juerg Luterbacher, Elena Xoplaki (eds.), The Great Wall of China as a Climate Frontier: Environmental, Climatic and Historical Perspectives on the Ordos Region. Springer Nature (in review)

"Re-examining the Tang Western Peripheries: Land Use, Land Loss, and Supply Infrastructure" (submitted to Tang studies, in review)

"The Tang imperial landscape in Central Asia: towards an environmental history of military agriculture" (in preparation for the workshop: "Afro-Eurasian Empires and Ecologies at the End of Antiquity (c.400–c.1000 CE)," 3rd-5th July 2026, Cambridge)

Mercenaries, Military Patrons, and State Founders on the Fringes of the Empire: Becoming Shatuo in the 9th-10th Centuries, contracted for the Chinese Global Histories, 250-1650 series, Amsterdam University Press (now Routledge). (in preparation)

An annotated translation of "Jianyuan yilai houzhe" 建元以來侯者年表 (A Table by year for Marquises from after [the reign period] Chien-yüan on, Table 8), translation of Chapter 20 of Shiji, The Grand Scribe's Records, v.3, Chronological Tables (Indiana Un. Press, Nanjing Un. Press), with Clara Luhn (in preparation)

Talks at conferences

Workshop: History and Historiography of the Early Medieval Period, December 4-5, 2025, Venezia.

"Feeding a capital: the granaries of Pingcheng in the 5th century CE," Early Medieval China Workshop, Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, November 22-23, 2025.

Sixth International Workshop (invited) Shiji 史記 Translation Project, July 24-27. 2025, Madison, Wisconsin.

T'ang Studies Society Conference "Questioning Boundaries: Contemporary Approaches to Tang China," April 25-26, 2025, Sarasota. 

"Horse-trading routes and state space in the late Tang Period (8th-9th century),“ The 8th IAAS International Conference, November 12-14, 2024， Naples.

Workshop (invited): "The Ordos Region: Climate, Environment, and History," May 20-25, 2024, IAS Princeton.

Workshop (invited): “Volcanoes, Climate and History (VCH)," ZiF Centre for Interdisciplinary Research, University of Bielefeld, November 27-30 2023.

Workshop (invited): "The Mobility of Nomadic and Sedentary Peoples in the Margins of China: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives," October 12-13, 2023, Sorbonne, Paris.

"A Roundtable Read of 'The Offices and Rites of the Kitan' (Qidan guanyi 契丹官儀) by Yu Jing 余靖, AAS Boston 2023.

"The 'army of adopted sons': patterns of military patronage at the margins of the Tang Empire", IX Mediaeval Nomads (MeN) "Nomads and their Archaeological Evidence", Napoli 24-27 November 2022.

AAS Annual Conference, Washington 21-26 March 2021. Panel: “After the Heavenly Qaghans: Multi-ethnic Approaches to the Tang-Song Transition.” 

Early Medieval China Workshop, INALCO Paris 15-16 November 2019. 

Workshop: Shiji translation project (six sessions), chapters 49, 52, 54, 58, 59, 60 (The Grand Scribe’s Records, vol. XII, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming). Institute of Sinology, LMU Munich,14-28 June 2019.

Workshop: Shiji translation project, chapters 48, 49, 50 and 52 (The Grand Scribe’s Records, vol. XII, forthcoming). Eiling Eide Library, Sarasota (Florida), 1-4 November 2019. 

22nd Biennial Conference of the EACS, Glasgow, 29 August-1 September 2018. Panel: “Narrative of political legitimacy and illegitimacy in Medieval China (Traditional historiography).”

14th Biennial Conference of Asian Studies in Israel, Jerusalem, 23-24 May 2018. Presentation: “Some remarks on the 'Shatuo liezhuan' 沙陀列傳 and the Shatuo early genealogical history.”

Workshop: Shiji translation project, chapter 122 (The Grand Scribe´s Records, vol. XI). 2nd Scientific Forum, LMU China Academic Network, Hangzhou 20-22 November 2016.

Journal peer reviewing

Asia Major

Journal of the American Oriental Society (now Journal of the American Society for Premodern Asia)

Journal of Song-Yuan Studies

Essays in Long Late Antiquity