Preetam Prakash | "Because He is a Taiji of the Fourth Rank…": Exceptional and Servile Status Under the Law in Qing Mongolia

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About the Speaker

Preetam Prakash is a fifth-year PhD candidate in Stanford’s Department of History. He is a Qing historian who focuses on the 17th to early 19th centuries and his major interests are in Qing state formation and centralization, the history of information, and legal history. Prakash works with both Chinese and Manchu language documents, and has lived in both China and Taiwan for extended periods. Most recently, he carried out archival research for his PhD dissertation in Taiwan on a Fulbright Grant in 2021-22. Prakash's dissertation research draws upon large numbers of previously unexamined archival materials to build a fresh, information-centered understanding of the Qing legal order and criminal justice, and their development over the course of the 17th to 19th centuries. His dissertation also touches on the role of the Qing legal system, and especially the central ritual institution of the Autumn Assizes, in various border regions of the empire including Mongolia. In the future, he plans to continue to explore in particular the impacts of Qing legal procedures, concepts, and norms in Khalka Mongolia.