John Knight is a Ph.D. candidate in East Asian History. He received his B.A. in History and Comparative Politics from Oberlin College and his M.A. in Asian Studies from Seton Hall University. In the 2007-2008 academic year he was awarded a University Fellowship and for the current academic year he has been given a Foreign Language Area Studies scholarship for Chinese. John has worked as an adjunct instructor of Japanese History at Seton Hall and a teaching assistant for World History at Ohio State. His research interests include Marxism, Mao-era China, Sino-Soviet relations, the influence of state ideology on popular culture and the international Communist movement in general.