Abstract:
What is intellectual history? How does one do intellectual history? In this presentation, Vincent S. Leung will explore these questions in the context of the study of early China from antiquity to the third century CE. He will first introduce major paradigms in the field of intellectual history in the long twentieth century, followed by a discussion of classic works on early Chinese thought by scholars such as Marcel Granet, Fung Yu-lan, and A. C. Graham. Then, he will present the arguments and methodology of his monograph The Politics of the Past in Early China (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and reflect on the challenges and pleasure that he experienced as an intellectual historian of early China
Speaker:
Vincent S. Leung is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of History at Lingnan University. He earned his doctorate in early Chinese history from the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His research interests include the history of early China, comparative historiographical traditions, and economic theories in ancient Eurasia. He is the author of The Politics of the Past in Early China (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
