RCCHC "China and the World: Historical Interactions" Talk Series #12 - The Encounter between 'Nine Zhou' and 'Asia': Rethinking the Cartographic Dialogues of Matteo Ricci and Martino Martini

Talk series12 Prof SONG Nianshen talkbanner

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Date

03 Oct 2024
Organiser

Research Centre for Chinese History and Culture
Time

16:30 - 18:00
Venue

DE306, PolyU Campus and online via Zoom

Speaker

Prof. SONG Nianshen

Enquiry

Ms Carmen LAW 34008979 rcchc@polyu.edu.hk

Remarks

This talk will be delivered in Mandarin

Summary

Matteo Ricci translated the notion of Orbis Terrarum into Chinese. In so doing, this notion, depicted by Ortelius and Mercator in European maps, presented itself in a series of the earliest world maps in China, notably the Kun Yu Wan Guo Quan Tu. Martino Martini, on the other hand, employed European cartographic languages to translate the geographic imagination in East Asia, represented by the Guang Yu Tu. In so doing he provided the most authoritative images of East Asia in European atlases in the 17^th and 18^th centuries. The contribution of these two figures was not merely to offer new geographic knowledge to their respective readers, but to proactively transformed basic concepts in a foreign context and created a positive understanding of “the other” in a new cultural context. Ricci integrated the concepts of “Asia” and “Nine Zhou,” which led to the invention of the word “ya zhou” (Asian Continent) among Chinese speakers. Martini interpreted China as an “empire,” which introduced the basic affirmation of the nature of ancient China in the mainstream European atlases. The Sino-West cartographic dialogue initiated by them suggested the importance of mutual understanding, tolerance, and compromise, as opposed to a total replacement of one by the other.

Keynote Speaker

Prof. SONG Nianshen

Professor

Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences

Tsinghua University

(only available in Chinese) 出生於北京，現任清華大學人文與社會科學高等研究所、歷史系教授。近期研究興趣，包括區域及全球史視角下的中國近現代史、邊疆與民族、東亞史、城市、歷史地理等。出版專著 Making Borders in Modern East Asia: the Tumen River Demarcations, 1881-1919 （英國：劍橋大學出版社，2018；韓文版：너머북스，2022）、《發現東亞》（北京：新星出版社，2018；修訂版2024；香港：中和，2019；台北：聯經，2019；韓文版：歷史批評社，2020），和《製造亞洲：一部地圖上的歷史》（桂林：廣西師大，2024）。中英文論文發表於The American Historical Review，The Journal of Asian Studies, Geopolitics, Inner Asia，The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 《北京大學學報（哲學社會科學版）》，《社會學評論》、《新史學》、《開放時代》、《讀書》、《區域》、《文化縱橫》等刊物。

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