Lecture: Writing World History in a Global Historical Context: Perspectives on Meiji Japan and Contemporary Taiwan

Lecture: Writing World History in a Global Historical Context: Perspectives on Meiji Japan and Contemporary Taiwan

Writing World History in a Global Historical Context: Perspectives on Meiji Japan and Contemporary Taiwan

 

 

 

Prof. Mu-chou Poo (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

KWZ 0.602

29. April (Tuesday), 18:00-20:00

 

Abstract: 

This talk will address two issues: the unique situation of Japanese learning of Western history and civilization in the mid-Nineteenth Century (Meiji Period), and the development of World History textbook writing as a response/reaction to the political process in contemporary Taiwan. For Japan, I will concentrate on the writing of ancient Western history, in particular the ancient Near East, as this period touches upon the origin of human civilization, which was of vital importance in terms of political, cultural, and religious implications to Japan’s effort of nation building. For Taiwan, the more liberal new national standard textbooks of mid-1980’s sought to debunk the old frame of textbook writing, and to introduce new concepts in history education; the decentralized textbooks of the late-1990’s were involved in the struggle of identity politics, and took a more conservative turn in terms of writing style and interpretation.

Speaker:

Mu-chou Poo (PhD in Egyptology, Johns Hopkins 1984), is adjunct Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He had worked as a Research Fellow at Academia Sinica, Taipei, from 1984-2009, and Chair Professor of History at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009-2023, and taught at various places, including Columbia, UCLA, and Grinnell College.  Research interests include religion and society in ancient Egypt and China. Major publications include Burial and the Idea of Life and Death: Essay on Ancient Chinese Religion (Taipei, 1993); Wine and Wine Offering in the Religion of Ancient Egypt (London: Kegan Paul, 1995); In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion (Albany: SUNY, 1998); Enemies of Civilization: Attitudes toward Foreigners in Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and China (Albany: SUNY, 2005). (Ed.) Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions (Leiden: Brill, 2009). Old Society, New Belief, Religious Transformation of China and Rome, ca. 1st-6th Centuries. Ed. With H. A. Drake and Lisa Raphals, (Oxford University Press, 2017), Daily Life in Ancient China (Cambridge U Press, 2018), Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China (Cambridge U Press, 2022), and The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China: An Imagined Paradise (London: Bloomsbury, 2023)

Organizer: 

Prof. Dominic Sachsenmaier, University of Göttingen

 

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