Kimberly Cheng

All history is global history, says Kimberly Cheng, this year’s Hong Kong Distinguished Speaker. Ms. Cheng presented an overview of her research on Jewish refugees living in China during World War II, explaining the confluence of world events that led 20,000 migrants to flee persecution in Europe. Ms. Cheng is a doctoral student in the joint Ph.D. program in Hebrew and Judaic Studies and History at New York University. She was a Penn Teaching Fellow in the history and social sciences department at Milton. She has also previously worked at the Roman Vishniac Archive at the International Center of Photography in New York City and the archives at the History Center of Tompkins County in Ithaca, New York. She holds a Master’s of the Science of Education from the University of Pennsylvania and an A.B. from Cornell University in history, Jewish studies, and German studies.

“The study of German Jewish refugees in Shanghai teaches us that history is always global, always transnational. We tend to isolate studies of history, but we cannot think of it as bound by national borders, nor can we think of current events that way.”