Charles Schencking

Biography

Charles Schencking is professor of history and the Public Orator at the University of Hong Kong. He began his academic career at the University of Melbourne where he spent just over a decade, obtaining the rank of Associate Professor in 2010. Before that, he was a British Academy postdoctoral fellow and Yasuda Banking and Trust fellow at Wolfson College, Cambridge. He has held distinguished visiting appointments at the University of Tokyo, Rikkyō University, the University of Kyoto, and Murdoch University and secured generous research grants from the British Academy, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Australian Research Council, the Hong Kong Research Grants Council, and the Japan Foundation.

His research and teaching interests are heavily influenced by a desire to better understand humanity through the discipline of history. He has published widely on the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, the Japanese navy, international humanitarianism, Japanese-American relations, and war, state, and society. His works often explore the interplay between politics, technology, environment, diplomacy, economy, and society. Emphasizing research-led teaching, Charles has always sought to empower students to develop and articulate original, evidence-based ideas and opinions about the past in clear, concise, and persuasive ways. He also impresses upon his students the importance of how to write and tell an effective story, a skill that has served him well as an academic, a speech writer, an orator, and as a college wine steward and sommelier. Charles has been awarded prizes for research and teaching, most notably the Award for Australian University Teaching Excellence, Early Career Category (2006) from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching Excellence in Australian Higher Education.