Needham Research Institute

SEMINAR CANCELLATION: we are sorry to announce that, due to the current travel restrictions, this Friday's Institute seminar by Dr. Josepha Richards has been cancelled. We will reconvene when the Easter term starts in April, and we wish everyone a healthy and productive spring!

Please join us on Wednesday 11th March, 11:00am-12:30pm, for the lunchtime talk given by Prof. Kato Shigeo (Waseda University, Japan), "Japanese Geologists in China in the 1890s: Geological Explorations in the Context of Japan's Imperialism". All welcome!

Application for the Ho Peng Yoke Fellowship for the year 2020-2021 is open until the 31st March 2020. Application open to scholars of all nationalities and career stage working in the fields pioneered by Professor Ho! nri.cam.ac.uk/HPY_fellowship…

On Wed. 4th March, 12:30-1:30pm, our Ho Peng-Yoke fellow, Dr. Bill Mak, will be giving a lunchtime talk in Robinson College, on "The dissemination of the concept of planetary weekdays in Asia". (Garden and seminar room, lunch provided). Save the date!

Please join us this Friday at 3:30-5:00pm for the talk by Tong Yangyang (Northwest University, China), "The Great Wall and the Interaction between Agricultural and Nomadic Peoples in the Ming Dynasty". All welcome!

Fri. 21st February, 3:30-5:00 pm, please join us for the talk by Ian GOW (University of Edinburgh), "A Godly Artisan's Place in the History of Science and Mathematics in 19th century China: The Scottish Missionary-Sinologist Alexander Wylie (1815-1887).” All welcome!

Fri. 14th February, 3:30-5:00pm, text-reading seminar by our Ho Peng Yoke fellow Bill M. Mak (Needham Research Institute/Kyoto University), "The (Non-)Transmission of the Jiuzhi li in China". All welcome!

Friday 7th February, 3:30-5:00pm, text-reading seminar, Wu Huiyi (Needham Research Institute), “How local can Western Learning really go? Clues from Qing Legal Documents.” All welcome!

Happy new year of the Rat! Please join us this Friday 31st January, 3:30-5:00pm, for the talk by Michael Loewe (University of Cambridge), " Kongzi and 'Confucianists' in Han times.” All welcome!

The Lent term seminar programme is here!

Happy new year 2020! Please join us in the first NRI seminar of the Lent term, on Fri. 24th January, 3:30-5:00pm, with Feng Jing (University of Cambridge), "Methods and Traps of Joining Fragments of Dunhuang Codices: Using Fragments of the Diamond Sutra as Examples". All welcome!

29th November, 3:30-5:00pm, for the text-reading seminar by Donald Wagner (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen), "Wang Xiaotong 王孝通 (7th century), Zhang Dunren 張敦仁 (1754–1834) and Nam Pyŏng-Gil 南秉吉 (1820–1869) on a Right-Triangles Problem". All welcome!

Application to the Ho Peng Yoke Fellowship in the History of Science and Technology in China (2020-2021) is now open! The closing date for 2020/2021 applications will be 31st March 2020.

Please join us in the Institute seminar on 22nd November, 3:30-5:00pm, with Zhang Manjun (University of Cambridge), "Deciphering the Obscure (xuan 玄): Challenges in Translation of Early Medieval Chinese Philosophical Treatises". All welcome!

Please join us on Fri. 15th November, 3:30-5:00pm, for the talk by Phra Ponampon (Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge), "Buddhist meditative techniques in Dunhuang manuscript S.2585". All welcome!

Please join us on Fri. 8th November, 3:30-5:00pm, for the talk by Zhang Shanjia (Lanzhou University), "Detecting the Imprint of Prehistoric Human Impact on the Environment in Northwest China from the Sedimentary Archives". All welcome!

Please join us on 1st November, for the seminar by Yu Jia (University of Cambridge): "Missionaries, Physics, and Instruments: Reading the transforming world of bowu in mid-nineteenth-century China". Please note that the seminar will start at 3:00 and end at 4:30pm. All welcome!

Please join us this Friday, 25th October 2019, 5.00 pm, Riley Auditorium, Clare College, 4th JOSEPH NEEDHAM MEMORIAL LECTURE, by Prof. Dagmar Schäfer (Max-Planck-Institute fur Wissenschaftsgeschichte), "THE SCIENCE OF SILK OR WHAT CAN CHINA CONTRIBUTE TO THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE?"

Please join us on Wednesday 23rd October, 11:30am-12:30, to the lunchtime talk by Prof. Wang Hsien-Chun (National Tsing Hua University, Hsin Chu): "Some preliminary thoughts on the pictorial errors in the Yuanxi qiqi tushuo 遠西奇器圖説 (1672)". All welcome!

Please join us on Fri. 18th October, 3:30-5:00pm, to the talk by Mary Brazelton (Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge), "Penicillin for China: Transnational pharmaceutical networks and technology transfer in the Second World War", All welcome!