Adam K. Frost 42 Beach Street Unit 10A, , MA 02111 Phone: (617) 909-8063 ~ Email: [email protected]

Education HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, Cambridge, MA 2015-Present  PhD in History and East Asian Languages; Cumulative GPA: 3.9  Fields: Global History of Capitalism, Modern , Late Imperial China FUDAN UNIVERISTY, Shanghai, China Spring 2014 HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, Cambridge, MA 2013-2015  A.M. in Regional Studies East Asia; Cumulative GPA: 4.0  Thesis: Discipline and Transform: the Making of Productive Citizens in the Early PRC SHAANXI NORMAL UNIVERSITY, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China Spring 2012 NORMAL UNIVERSITY, Beijing, China 2010-2011 HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, MA 2008-2013  B.A. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations; Cumulative GPA: 3.7  Honors Thesis: The Elusive Turning Point: Problematizing Narratives of Late Imperial Development

Presentations and Exhibitions “Pauper Economics: The Economy of Begging in Northwest China,” Paper presented to the panel “Taking Care of the Rich and Poor in Contemporary China” at the 2017 Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, (, Canada; March 2017)

“The Political Economy of Begging in 20th Century China,” Paper presented to the panel “A Historical Anthropology of Informal Economy in Urban China” at the 114th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, (Denver, Colorado: November 2015)

“Encoding China’s Past: Computational Methods of Historical Analysis,” Paper presented to the workshop “Chinese Local Gazetteers: Historical Method and Computerized Data Collection and Analysis” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, (Berlin, Germany: April 2015)

“China's Urban Undercaste: the Beggars of Xi’an,” Photography exhibition presented at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and the Harvard University Asia Center, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: September 2014)

“Entrepreneurial Strategies in Informal Economies,” Speech presented to the 2014 Chicago Summit of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, (Chicago, Illinois: August 2014) Experience HARVARDX, Cambridge, MA 2012-2015  Course developer for ChinaX (the largest humanities MOOC); designed course content, organized on-location shootings, edited and wrote lecture scripts  Taught historical introductions and weekly “office hours” (filmed interview sessions with Professors Peter Bol and William Kirby)

INSTITUTE FOR QUANTITATIVE SOCIAL SCIENCE, Cambridge, MA 2012-2013  Coded computer programs to parse and structure a corpus of late imperial local gazetteers; compiled a database of 13,000+ entries on disasters and famines from 140 ancient texts  Text parsing methods were later integrated into Harvard's China Biographical Database Project

Fellowships, Awards, and Distinctions

Hayek Research Fellow (2016) Hoopes Thesis Prize Winner (2013) IHS Thomas W. Smith Scholar (2016) Booth Research Fellow (2013) Adam Smith Scholar (2015) Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow (2011-2013) Dennis Washington Achievement Scholar (2013-2015) Fung Foundation Research Fellow (2012) Fairbank Center Grant Recipient (2015) Harvard China Fund Scholar (2011) Harvard Trustman Fellow (2014) James Cramer Fund Scholar (2009-2013) Foreign Languages Area Studies Fellow (2013-2014) Horatio Alger National Scholar (2008-2012)

Current Research Projects SPECULATORS AND PROFITEERS IN MAOIST CHINA, 2016 This research project aims to explore a largely uncharted history of socialist entrepreneurship: the making and unmaking of “speculators” in the People’s Republic of China. Beginning in the 1950’s, with the enactment of systems of rationing and distribution, China experienced frequent systemic shortages for most goods. Under conditions of state-structured scarcity, there emerged vast, underground barter economies in which basic commodities acted both as the primary medium of exchange and the principal store of value. Within these informal economies, a broad class of specialists, referred to by communist officials as “speculators and profiteers,” profited from the inefficiencies of state planning. These petty entrepreneurs, who ranged from petty traders of ration coupons to major arbitragers engaging in the production, trade, and distribution of illicit goods, were branded as the economic enemies of socialism and were made the recurring targets of anti-capitalist campaigns. However, within a few short years of Reform and Opening Up, many of the same individuals who had been persecuted under Mao were being celebrated as the pioneers of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” By bringing together official archives, informal texts, and oral histories, I hope to complicate previous characterizations of the Maoist state as the ultimate control society and offer a window into how local entrepreneurship has manifested historically in non-capitalist orders.

THE BIRTH OF CHINA’S TAXI INDUSTRY, 2015 In Republican Era Shanghai (1911-1949), Zhou Xiangsheng, a rural Chinese migrant and local entrepreneur, came to preside over a taxi empire, the largest taxi business in the most globalized metropolis in Asia. Though he came from the humblest of origins, between 1919 and 1931, Zhou grew from being the operator of an illegal “wild chicken car” into the most important interlocutor between Chinese businessmen and foreign hire car firms. Zhou's success as an entrepreneur lie in his ability to negotiate between different nexuses of power. Zhou Xiangsheng bridged the divide between foreign-style business enterprises and a largely Chinese consumer base by not only adapting technologies and practices acquired from foreigners, but reinventing them within his local context. The story of Zhou Xiangsheng and the building of Shanghai’s domestic taxi industry offers a unique analytic lens into understanding the history of global capitalism in a non-Western context.

THE RISE (AND FALL?) OF CHINA’S WEALTHIEST VILLAGE, 2014 Drawing primarily upon oral histories, local lore, and illicit archival records, the project retraces the economic origins of the China's “First Village Under Heaven,” looking to the political and economic mechanisms underlying the village’s success. This particular case study demonstrates how many of the entrepreneurial achievements attributed to the early years of Reform and Opening Up (1978-present) actually had their roots in the development of underground markets and illicit trade networks during the height of the collective economy under Mao. Before China took its first steps towards opening its economy in the late 1970's, Huaxi Village was already a center of capitalist production and entrepreneurial innovation.

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF BEGGING, 2012 Through the lens of the lived experiences of beggars, the project explores the deep structures of social inequality and the shifting arrangements between governments, local institutions, and urban inhabitants in 20th century China. An analysis of institutional records, local government statutes, and national policies illustrates how conceptions of poverty in China have changed over time, and how different ideas about the poor came to shape state practices of domination. Moreover, more than 300 interviews with beggars currently working in the city of Xi'an and a two-year geospatial survey show how the historical legacies of these ideas manifest as marginalizing practices in contemporary Chinese society.