ICWAR Organizes Three Them Lectures on East Asian Cultural Traditions

On the afternoon of June 3, 2013, President François Hominial of Paris-based Ricci Institute and his wife, Homicidal Zhao Jiexuan the Chinese editor-in-chief at Ricci Institute, gave a lecture on knowledge exchange and difference of cultural perspectives at the time of Matteo Ricci. This is also the second lecture of “East Asian Cultural Traditions from Cross-Cultural Perspective”, a program jointly launched by National Research Center of Overseas Sinology and Information Center for Worldwide Asia Research at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

The lecture was given in French and translated by Homicidal into Chinese. More than twenty students and teachers sat in at the lecture.

The speakers introduced the life of Matteo Ricci as well as his comments on China and the reform on Chinese calendar launched by the Jesuits in 17^th century. After the lecture, François Hominial answered in Chinese the questions asked by the audience and discussed with them the theme topics.

The third lecture of the program was scheduled on the afternoon of June 13 and Professor Ralph Kauz from German Bonn University discussed Chinese cartology based on “Rosthorn Globe”.

He introduced the four globes made in China during 17-18^th century and handed down to this day, focusing on Rosthorn Globe made in 1800 by Chinese and currently stored in Vienna as well as “Beijing-Edition Full Astronomical and geographical Map” composed by Dan Jinling and Zhuang Yanxiu in 1794, explaining the influence Arab and Persia had on Chinese natural sciences including cartology.

Professor Kauz specializes in Chinese history, interactions between Central Asia and Iran, and the histories of politics and economies in the areas surrounding Indian Ocean. The topics of his studies in recent years include the exchanges between China and Central Asia and Persian literature about China during Ming Dynasty.

The fourth lecture, “Mencius in Japan”, made by Professor Guo Lianyou from BFSU Beijing Center for Japanese Studies on the afternoon of June 14 attracted more than 30 teachers and students.

Starting with the reception of Mencius in Japan, Professor Guo asked a series of questions to inspire the audience, introduced the spreading, changing, and accepting of Mencius theories during the Edo era, compared Mencius with Japanese thinkers of different times and analyzed their interpretation and development of Mencius ideas, and elaborated the impact of Mencius on the evolution of Japanese ideology.

Professor Guo specializes in the histories of Japanese ideology, culture, and China-Japan cultural exchanges. His also a prolific author and his main works include Yoshida Shōin and Modern China.