Biographical note

I completed my Ph.D. at Ruhr University Bochum in January 2020 focusing in my thesis on Chinese historical geography. Based on mountain gazetteers from Qing China, I analyzed the representation of Mount Hua (Huashan 華山). For my Ph.D. project I have conducted two months of fieldwork in Shaanxi province, China. From July 2016 to December 2019 I have been a research fellow at Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig, Research Area „Geovisualizations”, in the research group „Maps of Globalization: The Production and the Visualization of Spatial Knowledge” from the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199: „Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition”. Within this project I analyzed Chinese cartographic visualizations from the mid-19th century to the present day. I received an M.A. in Sinology as well as History and Society of South Asia from Humboldt University of Berlin, where I taught courses on modern and pre-modern Chinese as well as Chinese culture and history after graduation.

Education

Jan. 2020
PhD in Sinology (summa cum laude), Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr U Bochum, Germany Advisors: Professor Dr. Christine Moll-Murata, Professor Dr. Jörg Plassen Title of PhD thesis: „Chroniken des Blütenberges: Ordnung, Moral und Staatskunst in qingzeitlichen Beschreibungen des Huashan 華山”

2011     
M.A. (Magistra Artium), Sinology / History and Society of South Asia, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

2007-2008     
Year of study at National Cheng Kung U in Tainan, Taiwan

Academic positions

2016 - 2019
Research Fellow, Research Area „Geovisualizations”, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography / Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199, Leipzig, Germany

2011–2016     
Assistant Lecturer ("Lehrbeauftragte"), Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Summer 2013
Research Fellow, Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Grants and Fellowships

2021-2022
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Taiwan

2014
Travel Grant, German Oriental Society („Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft”), Germany

2012-2015
Doctoral Scholarship, Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr U Bochum, Germany

2006-2010
Full Scholarship, German Academic Scholarship Foundation („Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes”),
Germany

Teaching

Winter 2013/14 until Summer 2016
„Modern Chinese”, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Winter 2013/14
„Education and socio-cultural change in imperial China”, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Summer 2013
„Introduction to pre-modern Chinese and traditional literary culture of China”, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Winter 2012/13
„The impact of literati culture on Chinese society”, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Winter 2011/12
„Reading and explanation of pre-modern Chinese source material and secondary literature”, Humboldt U Berlin, Germany

Conferences and Workshops
Paper Presentations

Aug. 2021
„A Radiant Future in East Asia? Gain and Risk Expectations in the Heyday of the Nuclear Age” 23rd Biennal Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies (EACS) Leipzig, Germany (online event)

Apr. 2021
„Taiwan-West German Nuclear Relations in the Cold War Era”
18th Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS): Taiwan in Transition Brno, Czech Republic (online event)

Oct. 2018
„Re-mapping the world: Chinese atlases from periods of historical transition” Third Annual Conference of the Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 1199: Imaginations and Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition Leipzig, Germany

Sept. 2018
„A view from inside: Chinese mapping of the world against the backdrop of colonial experiences”
International Symposium (ICA Commission on the History of Cartography & Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford): Mapping Empires – Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea Oxford, UK

Jan. 2018
„Kartographische Imaginationen aus dem China des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts”
Confucius Institute Leipzig Leipzig, Germany

Sept. 2017
From ‘All under Heaven’ to ‘China in the World’: Visual imaginations of China from the 19th and early 20th centuries” International Symposium (ICA Commission on the History of Cartography & Leiden University Libraries): Mapping Asia – Cartographic Encounters between East and West Leiden, Netherlands

Sept. 2017
„Picturing China and the world: Cartographic imaginations from the late Qing and Republican times”
33. German Oriental Conference Jena, Germany

Sep. 2015
“Politik am Berg: Staatskunst und Ordnung in der qingzeitlichen Beschreibung des Huashan”
XXVI. Annual Conference of the German Association for Chinese Studies Bochum, Germany

Jan. 2015
„Frauen des Blütenberges: Weibliche Aspekte des heiligen Berges des Westens in der Provinz Shaanxi”
Ostasienwissenschaftliches Mittagsforum Bochum, Germany

Sept. 2013
„Das Schwert des Blütenberges: Ein sakraler Raum des Daoismus aus dem Blickwinkel des konfuzianischen Gelehrten Jiang Xiangnan” 32. German Oriental Conference Münster, Germany

Jun. 2012
„Chronik des Blütenberges: Die Darstellung des Huashan und seiner weiblichen Aspekte im Spiegel qingzeitlicher Bergbeschreibungen”
Ostasienwissenschaftliches Mittagsforum Bochum, Germany

Publications

Pflug, Laura. “A View from Inside: Chinese Mapping of the World Against the Backdrop of Colonial Experience”. In: Mapping Empires: Colonial Cartographies of Land and Sea, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, eds. Alexander James Kent, Soetkin Vervust, Imre Josef Demhardt, Nick Millea (Cham, Switzerland: Springer 2020): 61-74.

Pflug, Laura. “From ‘All Under Heaven’ to ‘China in the World’: Chinese Visual Imaginations from the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”. In Mapping Asia: Cartographic Encounters Between East and West, Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography, eds. Martijn Storms, Mario Cams, Imre Josef Demhardt, Ferjan Ormeling (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019): 247–263.

Cherrier, Pierre / Moser, Jana / Lentz, Sebastian / Pflug, Laura (2019) Raumformate und Kartensprachen erkennen: Vorschlag einer Methodik zur Analyse von Karten und (Schul)Atlanten als Vermittler von Weltbildern unter Globalisierungsprozessen. Leipzig, Leipzig University Press. 46 pages (Working paper series of the SFB 1199 at Leipzig University; 19).

Research Interests

Taiwan studies
Nuclear history and technology transfer East Asia
Cold War history East Asia
Chinese local gazetteers