Emily Honig ’75

Emily Honig ’75, of Santa Cruz, Calif.; Oct. 14, of cancer. She was professor emerita of history at UC Santa Cruz. She went on to complete a master’s degree in East Asian Studies and a PhD in Chinese history at Stanford. Her research and teaching focused on modern China with particular attention to labor and gender. She lived in Shanghai for two years studying at Fudan University. There she investigated the history of women cotton mill workers in prerevolutionary China and published her first book. Her subsequent books explored changing gender configurations in late twentieth-century China, the shaping and reshaping of ethnic tensions in Shanghai’s working class, and the experiences of youth during the Cultural Revolution. She taught at Lafayette College and Yale before joining the department of women’s studies at UC Santa Cruz. In 2008, she joined the department of history and taught there until her retirement in 2020. She was fluent in multiple languages, including Japanese, Dutch, Russian, Spanish, and various dialects of Chinese. She enjoyed music, playing piano, bassoon, recorder, and cello. She was a constant presence at folk festivals and jazz concerts throughout the Bay Area and active in numerous  philanthropic organizations, including being a member of the Race, Gender, and Human Rights Fund and founder of the Victor & Lorraine Honig Initiative for Bay Area Social & Economic Justice. She was a fourth-degree black belt in Aikido and enjoyed hiking, traveling, and cooking. She is survived by her son and sister Lisa Honig ’76.