Rain Zhang

Rain’s research examines the formation of political and ethnic identities in the Latin West, with particular interest in how political authority was reconstructed amid periods of fragmentation and political transformation. Her work explores how religion, diplomacy, and cross-cultural communication shaped ideas of belonging and rulership, as well as their expression in medieval political rhetoric. More broadly, she is interested in the relationship between empire, identity, and the negotiation of power, as well as the movement of ideas and their consequences across the broader Eurasian world.