Dr. Chao Wang's current book manuscript, entitled Disabled But Useful: The Blind in China, 1900-1945, examines different social welfare responses to the livelihood problem of blind people in a formative period of commercial and industrial expansion in modern China. Taking a journey through the urban experiences of blind singers, musicians, fortunetellers and beggars as they intersected with entertainment culture, philanthropic activism, municipal reform and welfare legislation, the manuscript explores questions such as how blindness enabled community inclusion and caused social marginalization, and how the institutionalization of disability (canfei) as a social welfare category created new demarcations of social citizenship.