Associate professor of history Dr. Sarah Mellors has been studying modern China for 20 years, ever since she started intensive Mandarin lessons as a freshman in college.
Mellors, who has been with Missouri State for six years, currently teaches courses on premodern and modern East Asia (China, Japan and Korea), 20th century China, gender and sexuality, and the history of medicine.
Her most recent book, “Reproductive Realities in Modern China: Birth Control and Abortion, 1911-2021” (Cambridge University Press, 2023), blends those specialty areas into a focused examination of reproductive health history in 20th century China.
Mellors has given numerous talks on China’s reproductive health history, including at events hosted by Harvard University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rush University Medical Center, the University of New South Wales, the University of San Francisco, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, the University of Exeter and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Although audiences at these sessions ask a variety of questions, Mellors frequently finds herself fielding questions about China’s population future.
“Audience members at these talks want to know what China’s fertility policies will look like in the future, now that the population is graying and the government is pushing for three-child families,” Mellors said.
“[They] also are very interested in how ethnic minorities fared under the One Child Policy.”
[Read more…] about Dr. Sarah Mellors explores modern China’s reproductive history in latest book