Graduate Student Directory

Summary of Expertise

- Confucianism and Chinese Classical Studies

- World History of Christianity and Comparative Religion

- Early Modern Qing History and East Asian Studies

- Chinese Traditional Performing Arts

Biography, Education and Training

Manning is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a previous Ph.D. in Religion and Philosophy from Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research centers on politics and ideology in early-modern China, informed by her multidisciplinary background. Her first dissertation, published as a monograph in 2017, analyzed Confucian-Christian debates in the Qing Empire. Currently, Manning’s dissertation, titled “Music, Tradition, and Politics: A History of Qin-zither in Early Modern China,” examines the politics behind the Manchu-Qing state and Chinese elite’s reinvention of musical high culture centered on the qin-zither, a seven-stringed instrument. Her work explores music’s role as a multifaceted agent of change—simultaneously revolutionary and repressive, innovative and conservative. Manning has also studied under masters of Chinese performing arts across cities like Beijing and Hong Kong and is trained in poem chanting, qin-zither, and Kunqu opera.

Honors, Awards and Grants

2024-25,
- Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Doctoral Fellowship in Chinese Studies for non-ROC citizens
- UCSC History Department Dissertation Writing Fellowships, Summer 2024
- UCSC Graduate Division Dissertation Quarter Fellowship
- UCSC Humanities Institute Summer Dissertation Fellowship
- UCSC Graduate Dean’s Research Travel Grant

2023-24,
- Stanford East Asia Library 2023-2024 Travel Grant
- Geiss Hsu Annual Conference Travel and Participation Grant
- UCSC Graduate Dean’s Travel Grant (Conference)

2022-23,
- UCSC History Department Pre-Dissertation Summer Fellowships
- UCSC Humanities Institute Summer Research Fellowships
- UCSC Graduate Dean’s Research Travel Grant

2021-22,
- UCSC History Department Pre-Dissertation Summer Fellowships
- UCSC Humanities Institute Summer Research Fellowships
- UCSC GSA Graduate Student Cultivation Grant Award

2019-20,
- UCSC Regents’ Fellowship

Selected Publications

Peer-reviewed Journal Article
“Body, Filial Piety, and Rites: Xia Dachang as a Chinese Perspective on the Rites Controversy.” Studies in Church History 61 (forthcoming, June 2025).

Book Review
“Beyond Pan-Asianism: Connecting China and India, 1840s–1960s.” Asian Ethnicity (10 Jan 2024), DOI: 10.1080/14631369.2024.2303754.

Monograph
論明清中國士人信徒對祭祖禮的探討——以耶穌會羅馬館藏明清士人信徒祭禮文獻28篇為考察範圍 [An analysis of Ming-Qing Chinese scholar-believers’ studies on ancestral offering rites—based on the 28 Documents in the Society of Jesus Roman Archives], Hong Kong: Red Publish (Green Forest), 2017.

Selected Performances

UCSC ON-CAMPUS SERVICE
International Graduate Student Panelist:
- International Student & Scholar Workshop (2021 and 2022)
- Global Engagement Workshop (2021)
- ACE (American Council of Education) Internationalization Laboratory Meeting (2021)

Teaching Interests

Instructor of Record:
-Winter 2024,
HIS 40A “Early Modern East Asia”
- Spring 2024,
HIS 13 “Introduction to American Religious Culture”
- Summer 2023 & 2024,
HIS 39F “Expansion, Power, and Change: Christian World Missions and Missionaries”

Teaching Assistance:
Subject Taught (2020- Present):
Early Modern East Asia, U.S. History, Introduction to American Religious Culture, Introduction to the Bible, Early Christianity, The World to 1500, World History of Science, Global Environmental History, Skills and Methods