Martin Heijdra

Martin Heijdra

Martin Heijdra studied Sinology and Japanology at Leiden, Beijing, and Kyōto before receiving a Ph.D. in Ming History at Princeton, partly published in the Cambridge History of China. From 1988, he was the Chinese Bibliographer at the East Asian Library at Princeton; he became its Director in 2015. In those capacities, he published on various aspects of the history of the East Asian book and non-Western typography, such as “Technology, Culture, and Economics: Movable Type Versus Woodblock Printing in East Asia” (in: Isobe Akira, ed., Higashi Ajia Shuppan Bunka Kenkyū: Niwatazumi, Tōkyō, 2004, pp. 223–40), and “The Development of Modern Typography in East Asia, 1850–2000,” East Asian Library Journal XI:2 (2004), pp. 100–68. More recently, he oversaw the publication of the updated catalog of pre-1796 Chinese rare books at Princeton, Pulinsidun daxue tushuguan cang Zhongwen shanben shumu, Beijing, 2017, 2 volumes. He is the Book Review Editor for the journal East Asian Publishing and Society, Treasurer of the Society for Ming Studies, and Advisory Board Member for the Bibliography of Asian Studies. For 20 years, he was a Board Member of the Geiss Hsu Foundation, which has become a major sponsor for activities in the field of Late Imperial China.

Courses Offered