Mark Swislocki

Associate Dean, Faculty Development and Faculty Affairs; Associate Professor of History Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA Reed College; MA, PhD Stanford University

Research Websites: Global Asia Initiative Geopolitics and Ecology of Himalayan Water

Research Areas: History of China; Environmental History; Food Studies; Critical Animal Studies; Global History


Mark Swislocki is a historian with research interests in China, environmental history, food history, and the writing of global history in the age of the Anthropocene.  He is currently writing two books: Green Walls in China, a research monograph on the environmental history of China-Himalayan borderlands; and The Predicament of History: Educational Encounters in “Global Liberal Arts,” a series of linked essays on curricular development and teaching in New York University’s global network.  

He is Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Asian Environmental History (Oxford University Press Reference Editions, in progress).  He directs the NYU Abu Dhabi Global Asia Initiative and is “Co-Head Chef” of the Anthropocene Research Kitchen of the Division of Arts and Humanities of NYU Abu Dhabi. 

He is Co-PI of the Luce Foundation funded research project: “Port City Environments in Global Asia” (with David Ludden, NYU; and Tansen Sen, NYU Shanghai), 2018-2021 and 2021-2024.  

He is the author of Culinary Nostalgia: Regional Food Culture and the Urban Experience in Shanghai (Stanford, 2009) and articles on the history of nutrition, critical animal studies, and the environment.

Courses Taught