Saimaiti Maimaitiming is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences, European University Viadrina. His PhD research "From Empire to Republic: ‘Study in Germany’ as a Tool of Reactionary Modernization in China and Turkey (1871-1929)" is funded by Henkel Foundation. His field of interests includes the internationalization of higher education and intellectual transfers between China, Turkey, and Germany.

Visiting scholar at Bilgi University (Istanbul), the University of Arizona, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Visiting Fellow at Harvard University. Recent publication: “Study Abroad” in the Long 19th Century: Modernization, War, and Higher Education in Global Context, in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, 62 (2022).

Going Beyond Borders: “Female Study Abroad” as a Challenge for Gender Boundaries in China, Japan, and Turkey (1870s-1930s)
Abstract: During the 19th century, Western powers challenged the territorial borders of and the cultural boundaries within the Ottoman Empire, China, and Japan. To catch up with their rivals, the governments of the latter sent chosen students to the more advanced nations, mostly to the US, Great Britain, France, Germany, and Japan(an important
destination for Chinese students) Japan sent both males and females abroad, even before the proclamation of the
Meiji Restoration. Male students from China started going abroad in 1872, but it was not until the early 20th century that females were given the same chance. Even if the Ottoman Empire started sending male students abroad much earlier than China and Japan, the Ottoman Empire sent its first group of female students to France only in 1910, all non-Muslim. Only in 1914, the Ottoman government sent the first group of Muslim girls to Europe. Those Eastern females crossed (in)visible borders and