外国语言文学系列学术讲座第116讲 | Elliott Shaw Lecture

题目：The Early Modern European Encounter with China

主讲人：Dr Elliott Shaw (Associate Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Qingdao University)

时间：北京时间3月18日（周四）晚19：00-21：00；伦敦时间March 18th, 11:00-13：00

平台：钉钉  Ding Talk （请提前钉钉扫码加入讲座群）

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内容简介

The purpose of this lecture is to identify the significance of the European encounter with China in the 16th and 17th centuries from a European perspective.  For Europeans the period was characterized by conflict and discovery. On the one hand, Europe was racked with religious, political and military division. On the other hand, Europeans were encountering new civilizations as its explorers journeyed to Africa, the Americas, the South Pacific, India and China. This exploration laid the foundations for the establishment of European imperial rule in various parts of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. 

The lecture explores, firstly, how the European account of China developed over two centuries, and, secondly, how this account forced Europeans to think critically about their own civilizational practices and values. Further to this, we argue that the representation of Chinese civilization, in particular its philosophical traditions, encouraged radical European thinkers to see in China the possibility of a society where people could live free from the restrictions imposed by ecclesiastically-based political authority. This vision of a society free of religious authority would in turn inspire the radical thinkers and secular systems of government that emerged in Europe and America in the eighteenth century.

主讲人简介

Dr. Elliott Shaw is a British academic. He has a BA in French from London University, a BA in Theology from Oxford University and PhD from the Department of History and the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster University.  His PhD focused on the political thought of the German-American theologian Paul Tillich during the early Cold War period.  After completing his PhD, Dr Shaw spent two years teaching in the Department of Religious Studies at Lancaster University.  He then moved to St Martin's College (which later became the University of Cumbria); here he taught religion and ethics and directed an online editorial project entitled 'Overview of World Religions.'  Subsequent to the completion of the project, Dr Shaw was appointed as a lecturer in world religions; he later became senior lecturer and programme lead for the BA in Religious Studies in the same university.  In 2015, he was appointed to lead on the development of a range of cross-programme modules in the Institute of the Arts at the University of Cumbria; here he taught about theory and culture in the arts.  He has also taught on the BA programmes in English Literature, Creative Writing and Education Studies; and has examined and supervised PhD theses in a range of areas.  Dr Shaw has studied at the Harvard Divinity School, the Goethe Institute, and at Taiwan Normal University.  He has given lectures and papers in the United Kingdom, the United States and the Czech Republic, and has had articles and reviews published in a number of British, American and German publications. He has recently been appointed to work in the School of Foreign Languages at Qingdao University, and very much looks forward to meeting his new students and colleagues.