China Lecture Series: Reading China in a New Way? Western Images of China from the 19th through to the 21st Century
This lecture will delve into the history of images of China that have developed in America and Europe. From the 18th century onward Asia was constructed by philosophers as Europe’s great counter-principle, and in the 19th-century stereotypes regarding Asia and China gradually gained a firm hold in the enunciations of Western missionaries, travelers, and diplomats. The lecture also aims to investigate how far Western authors have been constructing certain ideas of China’s essential ‘otherness’, a tendency that at times can be deducted even in today’s writing about China.
ISDP is honored to welcome Monika Gänssbauer as the speaker for this lecture as part of the Stockholm China Center’s lecture series. Ms. Gänssbauer is Professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies, Stockholm University. She obtained her Ph.D. in Chinese Studies at Bochum University. In 2016 she was appointed Associate Professor for Chinese Studies at the University of Erlangen. In 2017 she joined Stockholm University. During the years 2014-2017, she had been an Honorary Professor at the Open University of Hong Kong. Her areas of research are intercultural relations between China and the West, translation in theory and practice, and religions in China.
The Head of ISDP’s Stockholm China Center, Torbjörn Lodén, will moderate the event.