In Memoriam: Emily Honig, 1953-2023

Emily Honig, professor emerita of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, died at her home on October 14. She was 70 years old.

Growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, she inherited a deep commitment to progressive politics from her parents, joining her family on countless demonstrations against the Vietnam War. Her great concern for social justice was a constant throughout her life.

Dr. Honig began her college years at the University of California, Los Angeles and then transferred to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she studied American history. She went on to complete a master’s degree in East Asian studies and a Ph.D. in Chinese history at Stanford University.

After teaching at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Yale University, Dr. Honig joined the department of women’s studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1992. In 2008, she joined the department of history and taught there until her retirement in 2020.

Dr. Honig’s research and teaching focused on modern China with particular attention to labor and gender. She was the author of several books including Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850-1980 (Yale University Press, 1992), Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949 (Stanford University Press, 1992) and Across the Great Divide: The Sent-down Youth Movement in Mao’s China, 1968–1980 (Cambridge University Press, 2019).