Join us on Tues 28 January for the inaugural lecture by the Handa Chair in Japanese-Chinese relations, Prof Urs Matthias Zachmann.
His lecture, which is open to the public, will take place in Old College Lecture Theatre 183 starting at 5.30pm. It will be followed by a reception.
Synopsis
The history of Japanese-Chinese relations since the mid-nineteenth century can be interpreted as a series of negotiations and contestations what Asia really stands for and how the concept relates to the western world. Especially from the Japanese perspective, the concept of Asia was highly unstable and oscillated between connotations of the particular and the universal, the backward and the visionary, the model and the dismal. Although these fluctuations were politically motivated and followed the progress of Japanese-Chinese relations, they also had an intrinsic logic of their own and reveal underlying constants that can be felt even today. This lecture is an inquiry into the political changes and cultural constants of the concept of Asia in the history of Japanese-Chinese relations and their implications for East Asia and the study of its relations today.
Speaker
Urs Matthias Zachmann received his MA (2000) and PhD (2006) in Japanese Studies from the University of Heidelberg. In 2010, he completed his Habilitation in Japanese Studies at the University of Munich. For his theses, he conducted extensive research at Waseda University, Harvard University, the University of Tokyo and Seikei University. He is also qualified as an advocate in Germany (first and second legal state exam, 1998 and 2002).
In 2006, Zachmann became Assistant Professor at the Japan Center of Munich University, followed by an appointment in October 2010 as Acting Full Professor at the Institute of Japanese Studies of Heidelberg University. He assumed his position as Handa Chair in Japanese-Chinese Relations in October 2011.