John Harney, PhD

I am a Professor of History at Centre College, a small and selective liberal arts college in the Bluegrass region of central Kentucky. My research focuses on the history of East Asia in the twentieth century, particularly in the evolution of cultural communities in colonial, post-colonial and post-imperial societies in China and Taiwan in the interwar period. I have written peer-reviewed articles on youth baseball in colonial Taiwan and American Catholic missionaries living in rural China during the Republican period (1911-1949), and I just finished my first book, Empire of Infields: Baseball in Taiwan and Cultural Identity, 1895-1968.

My interest in cultural history also extends to video games, particularly in the rise of “esports” and the influence of historical events and dynamics on the storytelling, settings and themes of popular video games. I am associate editor of History Respawned, a video series created by Dr. Robert Whitaker that invites historians to discuss video games in historical context and as texts in their own right.

I received my BA in History and English from University College Cork, an MA in Chinese Studies from the University of Sheffield and a PhD in History from the University of Texas at Austin.