Yi Ren

Yi Ren is an Assistant Professor of History at the GWU specializing in modern China. Her current research focuses on propaganda and political communication, social history, and the everyday workings of the state in twentieth-century China. She is currently completing her first book, Propaganda at the Grassroots: Cultural Labor and Socialist State-Making in Rural China, 1938-1976. At GWU, she teaches courses on modern Chinese history and world history.

 

Ren received her PhD in History from the University of Pennsylvania. She was an An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University in 2023-24 and an ACLS Fellow in 2024-25, when she was named the Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr. Fellow in Chinese History.

 

Ren also serves as Director of Communication and Engagement for Chinese Historians in the United States (CHUS), where she works to promote scholarly exchange and community-building.