Coping with Asymmetry

The turbulent transitions to ?modernity? during the 18th and 19th centuries called forth a variety of responses in different European communities. They ranged from political and religious mass movements to a recasting of the classical canon into a form utterly compatible with modern rationality. In East Asia, where ?modernity? came with the additional marker of being ?foreign?, scholars discussed the compatibility of this new and massively asymmetrical dispensation with what they saw as their own traditions by rereading their classics in this new light and reconfiguring history to explain the huge difference they saw in the present. The talk will focus on the Chinese case.

Rudolf G. Wagner is professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg and one of the directors of the Cluster Asia and Europe. A recipient of the ?Leibniz-Preis?, he has published widely on Chinese intellectual and political history.