Publications by EACS members

Member’s Publication: Simon Yongjun Zheng 郑永君

Simon Yongjun Zheng 郑永君 2025, A Study on the history of CICM in China and its Dutch-speaking Sinologist Jozef Mullie, 上海古籍出版社

上海古籍出版社 2025

Newly launched publication in China: A Study on the history of CICM in China and its Dutch-speaking Sinologist Jozef Mullie

Simon Yongjun Zheng 郑永君, Researcher at the Verbiest Institute KU Leuven

In no doubt, there are countless fascinating stories about Sino-European encounters that are filled with intriguing characters, and missionary activities played a significant role in it from
very early in history until the early 20th century. The Belgian missionaries, in particular the Flemish, have been mentioned in Chinese sources in a number of ways. Their handwritten
materials, such as the writings of van Rubroeck, Verbiest, and more recent ones of the late 19th century, whose numbers are much greater than their forerunners, provide us with a wealth of information about China from their perspective. Due to this, the Scheut missionaries, a remarkable group of Flemish clergy with a long history of carrying out missions in northern China, captured my attention and piqued my interest, so much so that their works and stories became the focus of my PhD research.… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Renata Vinci ed.

Vinci R. (ed.) 2024, Navigating the Mediterranean: Through the Chinese Lens: Transcultural Narratives of the Sea Among Land, Firenze University Press

Firenze University Press 2024

The volume Navigating the Mediterranean: Through the Chinese Lens: Transcultural Narratives of the Sea Among Lands, edited by Renata Vinci, Firenze University Press, 2024, is now available in open access and can be fully downloaded at the following link:
https://books.fupress.com/catalogue/navigating-the-mediterranean-through-the-chinese-len/15330

Synopsis:
In the postnational era, as scholars investigating the circulation of reciprocal knowledge between China and foreign countries, we are called to reconsider the relevance of national borders in our own research. This comes as a response to an extended demand to rethink the ties imposed by concepts such as nation, language and heritage in favour of essential inclusive sentiments of shared interests and belonging. This volume is the initial outcome of the research project The Mediterranean Through Chinese Eyes (MeTChE), which aims to investigate the perception and representation of the Mediterranean region in Chinese sources, conceptualising this ‘region among lands’ as a transcultural and debordered space, as advanced by contemporary Mediterranean Studies.… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Katherine Ngo

Ngo, K. (2025) Unlocking the Treasury: Elementary Learning for Boys in Qing China. Ann Arbor: Lever Press

Ann Arbor: Lever Press, 2025

New Open Access book on the Treasury of Elementary Learning (Youxue qionglin 幼學瓊林)
The is the first major European study of the Treasury of Elementary Learning (Youxue qionglin 幼學瓊林), a traditional Chinese children’s primer from Qing dynasty China.
In recent years, renewed interest in traditional Chinese elementary educational material has led to an increased use of these texts as teaching materials in Chinese schools, as well as in popular literature and academic research. Unlocking the Treasury seeks to address the gap in Occidental scholarship regarding pre-modern Chinese primary education, its theories, and textbooks. Using the concept of interpretive communities, this monograph explores the impact of socio-political influences and differences in Qing schools of thought, including the school of principle, the school of heart-mind, and practical learning. As such, this study examines the Treasury through three critical readings of the text: as a handbook for practical learning, a child-oriented reading of the school of heart-mind, and the instrumental perspective of education as examination training.… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Christian Henriot (ed.)

Collective Volume Modern China in Flux: Networks, Mobility, and Transformation (De Gruyter). This book explores Chinese society through the notion of networks—as a concept, a social reality, and a method—in order to reveal its complexity and fluidity during a pivotal period, from the late Qing dynasty to the early People’s Republic.

The volume originates from an international workshop co-organized by the Elites, Networks, and Power in Modern China (ENP-China) project and the Institute of Modern History at Academia Sinica. It brings together contributions from European and Taiwanese scholars, covering topics such as business networks, technocrats, women, Taiwanese elites, Chinese students in Belgium, and Sino-American alumni networks.

The book is available in open access—feel free to explore and share it! The print version will be available on March 3.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111374437/htmlRead more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Keller, A., and Chemla, K. (eds.)

Keller, A., and Chemla, K. (eds.) (2024) Shaping the Sciences of the Ancient and Medieval World. Textual Criticism, Critical Editions and Translations of Scholarly Texts in History. Book series: Archimedes ed. J. Buchwald. Cham: Springer Nature.

Springer Nature, 2024

Link to the publisher:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-49617-2
Should you wish to write a review of this book, please contact directly Christopher Wilby from Springer (Chris.Wilby@springer.com ).… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Lauren Walden

Lauren Walden. (2024) Surrealism from Paris to Shanghai. Hong Kong University Press

Hong Kong University Press, 2024

Surrealism in China initially gained a foothold in Shanghai’s former French concession during the early 1930s, disseminated by returning Chinese students who had directly encountered the movement in Paris and Tokyo. Shanghai surrealism adopted a dialectical form, resonating with the modus operandi of the Parisian movement as well as China’s traditional belief system of Daoism. Reconciling the thought of Freud and Marx, Surrealism subsumed the multiple contradictions that divided Republican Shanghai, East and West, colonial and cosmopolitan, ancient and modern, navigating the porous boundaries that separate dream and reality. Shanghai surrealists were not rigid followers of their Parisian counterparts. Indeed, they commingled Surrealist techniques with elements of traditional Chinese iconography. Rather than revolving around a centralized group with a leader, Shanghai Surrealism was a much more diffuse entity, disseminated across copious different periodicals, avant-garde groups, and the entire gamut of political ideology, ranging from Nationalist party supporters to Communist sympathizers.… Read more ⤻

Volume 5 of the JEACS (Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies) is online!

The editors of the EACS Journal are pleased to announce the publication of Volume 5 (2024). This issue contains a special section on ‘Commentary and Exegesis’ in poetry and fiction, history, and thought, stretching from the early imperial period to the present day, plus a Spotlight article giving a comparative perspective from Japan. There are also reviews of four recent scholarly publications, and a list of doctoral theses defended at European universities in the year 2023-24. We hope that China scholars, whether EACS members or not, will find this issue interesting, and that you will bear the Journal in mind when you are looking to publish a scholarly article (on any China-related topic) or a book review, or when you or one of your doctoral students completes a doctoral thesis. We especially welcome reviews of books (particularly translations) published in European languages other than English.
https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/jeacs/issue/view/663

We thank our authors and reviewers for their work and wish all a happy new year.… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Kelly Ngo

Ngo, K. (2024) Ordering Tang China: Cultural Memory, Emperor Taizong and the Essentials. Ann Arbor: Lever Press

Ann Arbor: Lever Press, 2024

New Open Access book on a seventh-century Chinese anthology for imperial governance

This is the first book-length study in English of the Essentials for Bringing about Order from Assembled Texts (Qunshu zhiyao 群書治要), a rulership anthology that became renowned for its model of governance in ancient and early modern East Asia. The Essentials is one of the earliest Chinese anthologies designed to educate rulers in cultivating an ethical character and governing the state. Commissioned for the Tang emperor Taizong in the 620s, the Essentials articulates a distinctive political philosophy through a collection of excerpts from earlier canonical, historical, and masters writings, and their commentaries. Examining the Essentials and its transmission in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam through the lens of cultural memory, Ordering Tang China explores the foundation, conduct, and impact of Zhenguan rulership, which became synonymous with good governance among later generations of ruling elites, scholars, and historians in China and beyond.  … Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Christof Lammer

Lammer, Christof. Performing State Boundaries: Food Networks, Democratic Bureaucracy and China. New York: Berghahn Books. 2024.

Polarizing images of authoritarian, socialist or culturalist otherness compromise analyses of the Chinese state. Still, such images produce effects beyond academia when they inform performances of the boundaries between state and non-state. This book shows how performative boundary work leads to contrasting judgements that decide about support and access to resources. In an ecological village in Sichuan, citizen participation in food networks and bureaucracy signaled Western liberalism, Maoism or traditional rural culture for different audiences. Attention to the multiplicity of performed state boundaries helps China studies and political anthropology to understand such diverging classifications – and how they sometimes co-exist without causing tensions.

Reviewers’ statements

“This book is of interest not just to scholars studying China but more generally to social scientists, particularly to social anthropologists to whom it advocates the infusion of the political to the study of kinship.… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Ariane Knüsel, Ralph Weber

Ariane Knüsel, Ralph Weber. Hier & Jetzt (Zurich), 2024, 352 p.

Hier & Jetzt, 2024

The books is based on extensive archival research, interviews with diplomats, business representatives, and sinologists, as well as a large number of (historical) newspapers and memoirs. We have also included numerous illustrations that have never been published before.

Table of Contents:

  1. Uhren und Bibeln, Opium und Kanonen 1644-1913
  2. Krieg, Krieg und nochmals Krieg 1913-1950
    Bildteil I
  3. Chinesische Kommunisten und das kapitalistische Paradies 1950-1960
  4. “Bewaffnet mit den Gedanken Mao Zedongs” 1960-1976
  5. Schweizer Goldgräberstimmung und Chinas Öffnung 1976-1989
    Bildteil II
  6. Massaker, Eklat und diplomatische Gratwanderungen 1989-1999
  7. Die Schweiz auf eigenen Wegen 1999-2024
    Anhang

For more information, please visit:
https://www.hierundjetzt.ch/de/catalogue/knusel-ariane-und-weber-ralph-die-schweiz-und-china_24000010/

Ariane Knüsel (Privatdozentin, University of Fribourg)
Ralph Weber (Associate Professor for European Global Studies, University of Basel)… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publication: Jana S. Rošker

Springer, 2023

Jana S. Rošker, 2023. Humanism in Trans-Civilizational Perspectives: Relational Subjectivity and Social Ethics in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Cham: Springer.

Preview at https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-37518-7

Jana Rošker is pleased to announce the publication of some of her recent books. Two of these works, both published by Brill, are already freely available in Open Access format:

Furthermore, We are looking forward to the upcoming Open Access release of two additional titles, currently not yet available online:

Thank you for your attention and support.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Helena F. S. Lopes

Cambridge University Press, 2023

Helena F. S. Lopes, Cardiff University, Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023

The South China enclave of Macau was the first and last European colonial settlement in East Asia and a territory at the crossroads of different empires. In this highly original study, Helena F. S. Lopes analyses the layers of collaboration that developed from neutrality in Macau during the Second World War. Exploring the intersections of local, regional and global dynamics, she unpacks the connections between a plurality of actors with competing and collaborative interests, including Chinese Nationalists, Communists and collaborators with Japan, Portuguese colonial authorities and British and Japanese representatives. Lopes argues that neutrality eased the movement of refugees of different nationalities who sought shelter in Macau during the war and that it helped to guarantee the maintenance of two remnants of European colonialism – Macau and Hong Kong.… Read more ⤻

Member’s Publications: Thorben Pelzer

Brill, 2023

Pelzer, Thorben, 2023. Engineering Trouble: US–Chinese Experiences of Professional Discontent, 1905–1945. China Studies, Volume 52. Boston: Brill, 2023.

In the early twentieth century, the first large batch of Chinese civil engineers had graduated from the USA, and together with their American senior colleagues returned to China. They were enthusiastic about reconstructing the young republic by building new railways, highways, and canals, but what the engineers experienced in China, including mismanaged railways, useless highways, and silted canals, did not always meet their expectations and ideals. In this book, Thorben Pelzer makes the stories of these Chinese and American engineers come to life through exploring previously unpublished letters, rare images, maps, and a rich biographical dataset. He argues that the experiences of these engineers include a myriad of contradictions, disillusionment, and discontent, keeping the engineering profession in a constant flux of searching for its meaning and its place in Republican China.

Download this announcement’s original PDF:

Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Nina Borevskaia

Shans 2023, 2 Vols.

Nina Borevskaia, 2023. The translation of Luo Maodeng’s novel The Tale of Zheng He’s Voyage to the Western Ocean (San Bao taijian Xiyang ji, 1597). Moscow, Shans Publishing House. 2 Vols.

The Russian translation of one of the classical Chinese novels Sanbao taijian xia Xiyang tongsu yanyi (Xiyangji, Author Luo Maodeng, 1597) was published in Moscow by Shanse publishing house in May 2023 (slightly abridged version, in two volumes with three appendixes, coloured illustratins and many comments), The translation was made by Nina Borevskaia, EACS member for almost 35 years. The book is in two volumes, each of about 440 pages. It has a welcome address by the famous modern writer Wang Meng and a long Preface in the format of the interview between the translator and the author called “Over the Abyss of Time and Space”. The translation is provided with several thousand comments (references).

English Abstract

Abstract: The translation of Luo Maodeng’s novel
The Tale of Zheng He’s Voyage to the Western Ocean
(San Bao taijian Xiyang ji, 1597)

According to the generally accepted Eurocentric ideas shared by many historians, the era of great geographical discoveries of the 15th — 16th centuries began with the expeditions of Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, and Ferdinand Magellan.… Read more ⤻

ERCCS: Reviews of new academic books from China

The European Research Centre for Chinese Studies (ERCCS) in Beijing, a joint centre of the École française d’Extrême-Orient and the Max Weber Stiftung, regularly publishes reviews of new academic books from China on its blog: https://erccs.hypotheses.org/category/publications/book-reviews
Here the latest reviews:
• 翁有为《近代中国之变轴:军阀话语建构、省制变革与国家》(Weng Youwei: The Axis of Change in Modern China. The Construction of the Discourse on Warlordism, the Reform of the Provincial System, and the State) reviewed by Clemens Büttner
• 吕庙军《清华简与文武周公史事研究》(Lü Miaojun: Research on Tsinghua Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts and Historical Events of King Wen, King Wu, and the Duke of Zhou) reviewed by Felix Bohlen
• 李小尉《新中国初期的中国人民救济总会研究》(Li Xiaowei: Research on the People’s Relief Association of China in the Early Period of the PRC) reviewed by Henrike Rudolph
• 陳少明《夢覺之間:〈莊子〉思想錄》(Chen Shaoming: Between Waking and Dreaming. Reflections on the Zhuangzi) reviewed by Dennis Schilling
• 李尹蒂《晚清农学的兴起与困境》(Li Yindi: The Rise and Dilemma of Agricultural Science in Late Qing Dynasty) reviewed by Jörg H. Hüsemann
• 张昌平《吉金类系:海外及港台地区收藏的中国青铜器研究》(Zhang Changping: Auspicious Metals’ Categories and System: A Study of Chinese Bronze Vessels Collected Overseas and in the Hong-Kong and Taiwan Region) reviewed by Maria Khayutina

See also the selective bibliography of books on Chinese history from China for 2022: https://erccs.hypotheses.org/1880Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Stéphanie Homola

Berghahn Books, 2023

Homola, Stéphanie. 2023. The Art of Fate Calculation. Practicing Divination in Taipei, Beijing, and Kaifeng. New York: Berghahn Books (Asian Anthropologies Series). ISBN 978-1-80073-812-6

This book dives into Chinese fate calculation, a practice which enthralls the Chinese despite official condemnations which have disparaged this traditional knowledge as “superstitions” since the beginning of the 20th century. From housewives to students and high-ranking officials, people from all social backgrounds visit fate calculation masters to learn about and make the most of their destiny, be it to choose a career, get promoted, make an investment, or get married. How do clients experience fate calculation consultations? How do they choose a diviner and how do they assess his/her skills? How does one become a fortune-teller? What controversies structure the professional milieu? How is a person’s fate calculated? Through an investigation that takes us from Taiwan to China to meet the various actors of fate calculation, this work explores why so many people are interested in a form of knowledge which everyone admits to be highly complex and questionable.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Qing Cao

Routledge Studies in Chinese Discourse Analysis

The Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China – A Case Study of the Xinmin Congbao and the Minbao, 1902-1910, Qing Cao, Routledge Studies in Chinese Discourse Analysis, January 2023: 148pp

The Language of Nation-State Building in Late Qing China investigates the linguistic and intellectual roots of China’s modern transformation by presenting a systematic study of the interplay between language innovation and socio-political upheavals in the final decade of the Qing Empire.
This book will be useful and relevant to academics, postgraduate students and final year undergraduate students in the field of Chinese Studies, and anyone
interested in the role of language in shaping modern intellectual history.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Alison Hardie

New York & Shanghai: SCPG, 2023

Alison Hardie, An Illustrated Brief History of Chinese Gardens: People, Activities, Culture, New York & Shanghai: SCPG, 2023, 164pp., US$19.95, ISBN 978-1-93836-887-5.

This book, illustrated with many images of Chinese gardens, ancient paintings, block prints, and other artefacts, is a social history of Chinese gardens, focusing on how gardens have functioned and been used in Chinese society through the ages. Apart from the aesthetic or philosophical aspects of Chinese gardens, it discusses how gardens functioned as real estate, how they gave opportunities of employment to skilled artisans, how they opened up outdoor space to both elite and lower-class women, and how they allowed men of different social classes and of different ethnicities to interact and gain mutual benefit; in short, how the existence of gardens exerted an influence on society as a whole. At the same time, the reader can find how the wider society, and even socio-economic changes beyond China’s own borders, had an impact on how gardens in China developed.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Björn Alpermann

Björn Alpermann, Xinjiang — China and the Uyghurs, Würzburg University Press, (open access in French and German)

I am happy to announce that my book “Xinjiang — China and the Uyghurs” published last year in German (Würzburg University Press) is now also available in French. Both versions are open access. You find the blurbs in both languages and the download links below.

Le Xinjiang – la Chine et les Ouïghours
La situation au Xinjiang, région du Nord-Ouest de la Chine, a ces dernières années suscité une attention internationale croissante. Les rapports sur les internements massifs de Ouïghours et d’autres groupes ethniques dans des camps de rééducation, le travail forcé, les stérilisations forcées et autres atteintes aux droits humains font la une de l’actualité et affectent les relations entre la Chine et ceux qui la critiquent. Le gouvernement chinois, en revanche, justifie sa manière d’agir par la lutte contre le terrorisme, l’extrémisme islamique et le séparatisme ethnique.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Alison Hardie

Hong Kong University Press, 2022, 320pp.

Alison Hardie, The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng: Poet, Playwright, Politician in Seventeenth-Century China, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022, 320pp., HK$750, ISBN 978-988-8754-07-6.
The Many Faces of Ruan Dacheng: Poet, Playwright, Politician in Seventeenth-Century China is the first monograph in English on a controversial Ming dynasty literary figure. It examines and re-assesses the life and work of Ruan Dacheng (1587–1646), a poet, dramatist, and politician in the late Ming period. Ruan Dacheng was in his own time a highly regarded poet, but is best known as a dramatist, and his poetry is now largely unknown. He is most notorious as a ‘treacherous official’ of the Ming–Qing transition, and as a result his literary work—his plays as well as his poetry—has been neglected and undervalued. Hardie argues that Ruan’s literary work is of much greater significance in the history of Chinese literature than has generally been recognised since his own time.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Frank Kraushaar

Fern von Geschichte und verheißungsvollen Tagen. Neoklassizistische Cyberlyrik im ChinaNetz und die Schreibweise des Lizilizilizi (2000-2020)

(Distant From History and Auspicious Days. Neoclassicist Cyberpoetry in the ChinaNet and the Poetic Diction of Lizilizilizi (2000-2020))

As a first attempt to explore in greater detail the contemporary phenomena of “modern verse in old style” 舊體新詩 published and read online, this book-essay contributes to a shift of perception in the studies of modern Chinese literature postulated by individual scholars and manifested collectively “not only to set right the misconception of the deterministic view regarding the development of the Chinese literary tradition, but also to affirm its vitality, continuity, and power of rebirth. (“Frankfurt Consensus”,2015)

In the first two parts of the book, the phenomena is approached from various angles: 1. biased perception and representation (via translation) of modern and classical Chinese poetry in the West, 2. transition from “old style poetry” to “new old style poetry” in China, distinction between “classicist” and “neoclassicist” diction, 3.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Walter Lee

Principles and Laws in World Politics: Classical Chinese Perspectives on Global Conflict (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2021) by Walter Lee, 524 pages

The search for universal principles and laws in world politics is a colossal common task for all civilisations. It should not be monopolised by the Western liberal paradigm. Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, global conflicts have been satisfactorily resolved neither by communism nor liberalism. Humanitarian intervention, now under the cover of the responsibility to protect (R2P), has destabilised many societies, leaving justice undone. This inspiring book invites debates on the post-liberal imagination of “emancipated Leviathan”: an almighty political authority which exercises awe and force to restore order, as well as enshrines globally-negotiated values of common conscience and reinvented cosmopolitanism. Human well-being will truly become reality when we synergise pre-modern and pre-liberal ways of thinking, worldviews, ethics, and aesthetic styles by means of cross-civilisational, cross-disciplinary fundamental research, and let an emancipated Leviathan exercises principles and laws of virtue derived from the study.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Xiaoyan Hu

The Aesthetics of Qiyun and Genius: Spirit Consonance in Chinese Landscape Painting and Some Kantian Echoes. Published by Lexington Books (an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield), 320 Pages, 2021.

In The Aesthetics of Qiyun and Genius: Spirit Consonance in Chinese Landscape Painting and Some Kantian Echoes, Xiaoyan Hu provides an interpretation of the notion of qiyun, or spirit consonance, in Chinese painting, and considers why creating a painting—especially a landscape painting—replete with qiyun is regarded as an art of genius, where genius is an innate mental talent. Through a comparison of the role of this innate mental disposition in the aesthetics of qiyun and Kant’s account of artistic genius, the book addresses an important feature of the Chinese aesthetic tradition, one that evades the aesthetic universality assumed by a Kantian lens. 

Drawing on the views of influential sixth to fourteenth-century theorists and art historians and connoisseurs, the first part explains and discusses qiyun and its conceptual development from a notion mainly applied to figure painting to one that also plays an enduring role in the aesthetics of landscape painting.… Read more ⤻

Members’ Publications: Minna Törmä

Nordic Private Collections of Chinese Objects is already out as e-publication and the print version will appear June 16th.