About me

Professional information

Here is my curriculum vitae, my UCSC profile, and my Google Scholar profile.

About my institution

More about UC Santa Cruz, a one-page overview of UCSC, the Politics Department, and the East Asian Studies program.

Bio

Born in Madison, Wisconsin, Ben Read spent a year of his childhood in the Dutch village of Overasselt and another in socialist Beijing, undergoing indoctrination at public schools in all three localities. He later studied at Cornell, UC Berkeley, and Harvard. Fluent in Mandarin, Ben has lived, worked, and conducted fieldwork in mainland China for a total of more than five years and in Taiwan for more than one year. He taught at the University of Iowa before joining the Politics faculty at UC Santa Cruz in 2008. He enjoys road biking, mountain biking, and hiking, and is an instrument-rated private pilot.

Contact information

Mailing address:
Politics Department
Merrill Faculty Services
1156 High Street
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA 95064

Office phone: 831-459-4469
Email: bread (at) ucsc (dot) edu

Office hours

I am on sabbatical in the 2023-2024 academic year, working on a book. I will resume teaching and office hours in Fall 2024.