Nathanael Lai
I was born and raised in Hong Kong, and I came to study for an MPhil in World History at Cambridge following a BA in History and English at the University of Hong Kong. I am now a PhD candidate supervised by Dr Rachel Leow.
My PhD research examines the politics of itinerant historical actors from across Cold War Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, in particular Thailand and Singapore. Focusing on a set of ethnic or ‘overseas’ Chinese whose lives were entangled — athletes, bankers, educators, journalists, and publishers — my project foregrounds the way these people navigated the increasingly constricted political landscape of the 1950s, articulating politics that complicated deep-seated binaries of the Cold War era: pro-Beijing versus pro-Taipei, left versus right, communism versus anti-communism. I am grateful to the Gates Cambridge Trust for supporting my research.
My past research projects centred on the history of protest and dissent in colonial Hong Kong, not least its connections to Southeast Asia, which I still strive to explore and develop academically and otherwise.
I co-convene Cambridge's World History Workshop in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Histories of the Cold War, transnational and modern China, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, contentious politics, etc.
I supervise for the Part 1A Outline paper O11 ‘The Twentieth-Century World’ (2023-2024). For Part II I lead the HAP (Historical Argument and Practice) seminar on ‘Transnational Histories’.
‘Researching the Cold War and Chinese Overseas in Thailand and Beyond’, Sharing Session on ‘Navigating Overseas Archives and Libraries’, World History Workshop, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, February 2024.
‘In Support of the Zhongzhen: Loans, Textbooks, and the Cold War in 1950s Southeast Asia and Hong Kong’, ‘Innovating Chinese Business History’ Workshop, Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong, October 2023; Early Career Scholars Workshop, Hong Kong History Centre, University of Bristol, October 2023.
‘Loans, Textbooks, and the Cold War in 1950s Southeast Asia and Hong Kong’, Research Seminar, Department of History, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, April 2023.
‘Chinese Banking and Everyday Practices in 1950s Southeast Asia’, Postgraduate Research Seminar, Department of History, University of Hong Kong, November 2022.
‘Hong Kong's 1956 Disturbances and the Transnational Campaign of Triad Leader Zhang Xunyi in Southeast Asia’, Society for Hong Kong Studies Annual Conference, June 2022.
‘Entangled Resistance in Colonial Hong Kong and Singapore, c. 1956’, World History Workshop, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, February 2022.
Contact
Tags & Themes
Hughes Hall, Cambridge, CB1 2EW
Key publications
'On Documenting Life as Politics', The Scholar, May 2023.