Nicolas Standaert, a visiting scholar at the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences at Peking University, is scheduled to deliver a lecture this Friday on "The Intercultural Interweaving of Historical Texts: Ancient Chinese History and Its European Writing."
According to Chinese Christian Studies, the lecture, set for May 16, will explore an early case of "intercultural historiography" by examining Chinese, Manchu, and European sources related to ancient Chinese history, illustrating the interplay of historical narratives across civilizations. The focus will be on how both Chinese and European scholars have interpreted the account of Emperor Ku's concubines giving birth to miraculous children—a story that gave rise to a rich interpretive tradition within Chinese classical texts and significantly influenced the diverse interpretations developed by European scholars.
Nicolas Standaert is a professor of Sinology at KU Leuven (Belgium) and a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Belgium. His research primarily centers on cultural exchanges between China and Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His notable publications include The Intercultural Weaving of Historical Texts: Chinese and European Stories About Emperor Ku and His Concubines (Brill, 2016); Chinese Voices in the Rites Controversy: Travelling Books, Community Networks, Intercultural Arguments (Institutum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 2012); The Interweaving of Rituals: Funerals in the Cultural Exchange Between China and Europe (University of Washington Press, 2008); and Yang Tingyun, Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China: His Life and Thought (Brill, 1988), among others.
