Patrick Buck

I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and graduated from Albion College with a B.A. in History. I was valedictorian of my class and am a third-generation Albion College graduate in my family. I also come from a family of MSU alumni and athletics fans.

My B.A. thesis, which received Albion College’s Most Outstanding Honors Thesis Award, explores the debate among 20th-century Chinese intellectuals over how to interpret and categorize the ancient Chinese political philosophy Fajia, or “The School of Law.”

I am interested in the history of Marxism and ancient Chinese thought, and I focus my research on the connections between these two. My dissertation is an intellectual history of two parallel campaigns in the Sinophone world during the Cold War: the Criticize Lin Biao Criticize Confucius Campaign in mainland China, and the Chinese Cultural Renaissance Campaign in Taiwan. These two campaigns by the rival regimes of the communist People’s Republic of China and the nationalist Republic of China presented two different views of Chinese culture, philosophy, and history to their peoples and to the world. They debated over what exactly Chinese culture is, and over the legacies of ancient Chinese philosophy in the modern world. In my research project, I utilize archival sources from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, as well as academic and other intellectual writings of the mid-1970s in the broader Sinophone world.

My other academic interests include the histories of psychoanalysis, ideology, Confucianism, Buddhism, and international communism.

Awards and Fellowships: Foreign Language Area Studies Academic Year Fellowship (2016-2017, 2017-2018); Foreign Language Area Studies Summer Language Study Fellowship (2016, 2017); Michigan State University History Department Summer Research Funding (2018, 2019); Michigan State University College of Social Sciences Research Scholars Award (2019); Dr. Kwan-Wai So Memorial Scholarship Fund in History (2020); Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (2020-2021); MSU Asian Studies Center S.C. Lee Graduate Paper Prize, First Place (2022).

Teaching Appointments: IAH 204: Asia and the World (Fall 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2018) with Dr. Sidney Lu; HST 150: World History Since 1500 (Spring 2019) with Dr. Charles Keith; HST 201: Historical Methods and Skills: From Confucius to Xi Jinping: History of Chinese Political Thought (Spring 2020) Head Instructor.

Grading Appointments: HST 368: China Since 1900 (Fall 2017, Fall 2020) with Dr. Aminda Smith; HST 320: History of Michigan (Fall 2018, Summer 2020) with Dr. Roger Rosentreter

Administrative Appointment: Michigan State University History Department Internship Coordinator (Fall 2020).

Other website: Linkedin

Podcast Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hapa4HePq50&t=1s