Position:

University Lecturer in Chinese History; Official Fellow and Tutor in Chinese History, Pembroke College; Director, British Inter-University China Centre

Faculty / College Address:

Institute for Chinese Studies

Email:

hilde.deweerdt@chinese.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests:

• Chinese intellectual history
• Political culture
• Information networks
• Urban and environmental history

Current Projects:

My next book-length study examines how information helps form a sense of place, more specifically, how information about places such as the court,the capital, borderlands, and local jurisdictions contributed to the formation of a sense of empire in imperial China.

A longer-term collaborative project, “China and the Historical Sociology of Empire”, examines the significance of political literacy and political communication in the maintenance of empire in Chinese history through the digital analysis of correspondence and notebooks. Major funding for this project has recently been obtained from the European Research Council. Check for more details in the coming months.

Participation in international projects:

• “China Biographical Database Project”
  http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k16229&pageid=icb.page76535
• The New Political History Research Network/ 新政治史研討班: an ongoing workshop on new approaches to Chinese political history
• “Maritime Cross-Cultural Exchange in East Asia and the Formation of Japanese Traditional Culture: An Interdisciplinary Approach Focusing on Ningbo,” on the history of the port of Ningbo, Sôdaishi kenkyûkai (The Society for Song History, Japan),2003-2008
  http://www.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/maritime/english/index.html

Courses Taught:

• Lectures: contributions to East Asian History and Modern Chinese History surveys, MPhil and MSt courses in Chinese Studies
• Tutorials: Imperial Chinese History, Modern Chinese History, Space and Time in Chinese History (Chinese Cities)
• Classes: Classical Chinese (Unseen Texts)
• Special Subject (classes and lectures): Imperial Chinese History and Politics in Comparative Perspective [forthcoming]
• Graduate Seminars: contributions to Chinese Studies Research Methods Seminar, Classical Chinese Texts Seminar

Recent Publications:

In Progress:

• Information, Territory, and Elite Networks: The Crisis and Maintenance of Empire in Song China. Book manuscript. In progress.
• Chinese Thought. Under contract, Cambridge University Press. 

Book:

• Competition over Content: Negotiating Standards for the Civil Service Examinations in Imperial China (1127-1276). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. 508 pages.

Shortlisted for the 2009 ICAS Book Prize (1 of 4 titles in the Asian Humanities published in 2007-2008)

Edited Volume:

• Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print--China, Tenth-Fourteenth Centuries, co-edited with Lucille Chia. Leiden: Brill, 2011. 446 pp.

Articles and Book Chapters:

• “Places of the Self: Pictorial Autobiography in the Eighteenth Century.” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 33 (2011), forthcoming.
• “Chinese Cities, 600-1400.” In Handbook on Global Cities. Ed. Peter Clark. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, forthcoming.
• “The Production and Circulation of ‘Written Notes’ (biji).” In Imprimer autrement: Le livre non commercial dans la Chine impériale. Ed. Michela Bussotti and Jean-Pierre Drège. Forthcoming.
  Related digital publication: “The Production and Circulation of ‘Written Notes’ (biji) –Tables and Figures.” 2009-2010. Oxford University Research Archive. http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid%3Aea1a17a3-2e27-4a13-b8d8-ed90692ff893
• “The Cultural Logics of Map Reading: Text, Time and Space in Printed Maps of the Song Empire.” In Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print--China, Tenth-Fourteenth Centuries. Ed. Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt, pp. 239-270. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
  Related digital publication: “Reading Instructions for an Early Printed Map of the Chinese Empire:  A Digital Reconstruction.” 2007-2009. Oxford University Research Archive. http://ora.ouls.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:c0c281cd-4c2d-46ea-94b0-f7758cf0c3e6
• “Introduction,” co-authored with Lucille Chia. In Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print--China, Tenth-Fourteenth Centuries. Ed. Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt, pp. 1-29. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
• “Neo-Confucian Philosophy and Genre: The Philosophical Writings of Chen Chun and Zhen Dexiu.” In Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Ed. John Makeham, pp. 223-248. New York: Springer, 2010.
• “Bei Mei de Songdai yanjiu 北美的宋代研究” (“History: Song Studies”). In Bei Mei Zhongguoxue– yanjiu gaishu yu wenxian ziyuan 北美中国学– 研究概述与文献资源 (Chinese Studies in North America – Research and Resources). Ed. Zhang Haihui, pp. 111-144. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2010. [Gao Qing and Ma Xiaohe, tr.]
• “Maps and Memory: Readings of Cartography in Twelfth- and Thirteenth- Century Song China.” Imago Mundi: International Journal for the History of Cartography 61:2 (2009), 145-167.
• “Court Gazettes and ‘Short Reports’: Official Views and Unofficial Readings of Court News.” Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 (Chinese Studies) 27:2 (2009), 167-200.
  Electronic edition with tables:
  http://nclcc.ncl.edu.tw/ccs/image/01_027_002_01_07.pdf
• “Mapping Communication from Mingzhou: Networks of Correspondence.” “Society for Song, Yuan and Conquest Dynasties Studies,” 2008. http://www.humanities.uci.edu/eastasian/SungYuan/Downloads/Warwick/DeWeerdt.pdf Abbreviated in “Mapping Communication from Mingzhou: Networks of Correspondence.” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 38 (2009), 184-186.
• “Les centres du pouvoir impérial: les premières capitales de la Chine” (“Centers of Imperial Power: China’s Early Capitals”). In Fils du ciel. Ed., Jean-Paul Desroches and Ilse Timperman, pp. 98-115. Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2009.
  Dutch translation: “Centra van keizerlijke macht: China’s vroege hoofdsteden.” In Zoon van de Hemel. Ed., Jean-Paul Desroches and Ilse Timperman, pp. 98-115. Brussels: Mercatorfonds, 2009.
• “The Discourse of Loss in Private and Court Book Collecting in Imperial China.” Library Trends 55:3 (2007), special issue, “Libraries in Times of War, Revolution, & Social Change,” 404-420.

• “Sōdai kakyo ni okeru gakujutsu no rekishi 宋代科挙における学術の歴史” (“The Intellectual History of the Song Dynasty Civil Service Examinations”). Chūgoku shakai to bunka 中国社会と文化 (China: Society and Culture) 22 (2007), 6-26.
• “The Encyclopedia as Textbook: Selling Private Chinese Encyclopedias in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.” Extrême-orient, Extrême-occident, special volume, “Qu’était-ce qu’écrire une encyclopédie en Chine?” 2007, 77-102.
• “Changing Minds through Examinations: Examination Critics in Late Imperial China,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 126:3 (2006): 367-377.
• “Byways in the Imperial Chinese Information Order: The Dissemination and Commercial Publication of State Documents,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 66:1 (2006), 145-188.
  Japanese translation: “Teisei Chūgoku no jōhō chitsujo ni okeru mikaitaku no sokumen: seifu bunsho no fukyū to shōgyō shuppan 帝政中国の情報秩序における未開拓の側面:政府文書の普及と商業出版.” Ōsaka shiritsu daigaku tōyōshi ronsō 大阪市立大学東洋史論叢 (OCU Asian History), special volume, “Bunken shiryōgaku no arata na kanōsei 文献資料学の新たな可能性　(New Approaches to the Study of Texts),”2007, 187-218. [Takatsu Takashi 高津孝, tr.]
• “What Did Su Che See in the North? Publishing Laws, State Security, and Political Culture in Song China.” T’oung Pao: International Journal of Chinese Studies 92:4-5 (2006), 466-494.
• “The Ways of the Teacher: Commemorating the Administrator and the Transmitter in Twelfth-Century Teacher Biographies.” Chūgoku shigaku 中国史学/Studies in Chinese History 16 (2006), 1-24.
• “The Empire-Wide Significance of Local Intellectual Traditions: ‘Yongjia Scholarship’ in the Twelfth Century.” In Education and Local Development in Late Imperial China. Ed. Liu Hsiang-kwang. Forthcoming.
• “Amerika no Sōdaishi kenkyū ni okeru kinnen no dōkō: Chihō shūkyō to seiji bunka アメリカの宋代史研究における近年の動向: 地方宗教と政治文化” (“Recent Trends in American Research in Song Dynasty History: Local Religion and Political Culture”). Ōsaka shiritsu daigaku tōyōshi ronsō 大阪市立大学東洋史論叢 (OCU Asian History) 15 (2006), 121-138. [Kenji Ueuchi 上内健司, tr.]
  English version: “Recent Trends in American Research in Song Dynasty History: Local Religion and Political Culture.” 33 pp. Taiwan Song shi yanjiu wang 台灣宋史研究網 (Taiwanese Song History Research Network). 2/1/2006. http://www.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/~twsung/breview/subpage/02/files/Recent_Trends_in_American_Research_in_Song_Dynasty_History.pdf
  Chinese translation: “Meiguo Songshi yanjiu de xin quxiang: difang zongjiao yu zhengzhi wenhua” 美国宋史研究的新趋向：地方宗教与政治文化. Zhongguo shi yanjiu dongtai 中国史研究动态 2011/3[Research Trends in Chinese History], .[Liu Chengguo 刘成国, Li Mei 李梅, tr.]
• “Content and Composition: An Investigation of ‘Lü Zuqian’ Examination Teaching.” In Jiangnan wenhua yanjiu (di yi ji) 江南文化研究（第一辑）[Jiangnan Cultural Studies, Volume 1] Ed. Zhejiang shifan daxue renwen xueyuan 浙江师范大学人文学院, pp. 92-109. Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2006.
  Reprinted from: “Content and Composition: An Investigation of ‘Lü Zuqian’ Examination Teaching.” In “Lü Zuqian ji Zhedong xueshu wenhua guoji yantaohui lunwen huibian 吕祖谦暨浙东学术文化国际研讨会论文汇编” (“Collected Papers from The International Conference on Lü Zuqian and the Intellectual Culture of Eastern Zhejiang”). Pp. 188-206. Jinhua: Zhejiang shifan daxue, 2005.
• “Regional Descriptions: Administrative and Scholarly Traditions.” In Treasures of the Yenching: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Harvard-Yenching Library. Ed. Patrick Hanan, pp. 122-153. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Yenching Library, 2003.
• “Canon Formation and Examination Culture: The Construction of Guwen and Daoxue Canons.” Journal of Sung-Yuan Studies 29 (1999), 91-134.
• “Aspects of Song Intellectual Life: A Preliminary Inquiry into Some Southern Song Encyclopedias.” Papers on Chinese History 3 (1994), 1-27.
• “Grief for Departed Women in Shi from Jin to Sui.” Papers on Chinese Literature 1 (1993), 21-39.

Research Guides:

• Song Research Tools. 2003- http://sunsite.utk.edu/songtool/
• Songdai yanjiu gongju shukan zhinan—xiudingban 宋代研究工具書刊指南—修訂版. Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue chubanshe, 2008. 233 pp.

Encyclopedia Articles:

• “Chinese Printing to 1000 CE,” “Chinese Printing, 1000-1500,” “Chinese Printing, 1500-1800,” “Korean Printing to 1500 CE,” “The Invention and Production of Paper (100-1000 CE): from China to West Asia,” “The Spread of Paper to Europe after 1000 CE,” “The Printing of The Diamond Sutra,” “The Printing of Commercial Encyclopedias,” “The Printing of Matteo Ricci’s Map of the World,” “Cai Lun,” “The Battle of Talas and the Transmission of Paper Manufacturing,” “The Invention of Metal Type,” “Fabriano Paper.” In World History Encyclopedia. Ed. Alfred J. Andrea. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2011.
• “The Sui Dynasty.” In The World and Its Peoples. China and Mongolia. Part I, pp. 43-44. Brown Reference Group: London, 2007.

Book and Conference Reviews:

• “War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe by Victoria Tin-bor Hui,” Bijiao: China in Comparative Perspective Book Review/比较:中国比较研究书评 1.1 (2011), 26-28.
  http://www2.lse.ac.uk/anthropology/research/CCPN/publications/Journals/bookReview/bookReview.aspx
• “Transformative Journeys: Travel and Culture in Song China by Cong Ellen Zhang” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 74:3 (2011), 44-46.
• “Asian Empire and British Knowledge. China and the Networks of British Imperial Expansion by Ulrike Hillemann.” Itinerario: International Journal on the History of European Expansion and Global Interaction 35:1 (2010), 149-151.
• “Divided by a Common Language: Factional Conflict in Late Northern Song China by Ari Daniel Levine,” Journal of Asian Studies 69:2 (2010), 556-558.
• “The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China by Dieter Kuhn,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 73:1 (2010), 132-134.
• The Woman Who Discovered Printing by T. H. Barrett,” SHARP News 18:1 (2009), 10-11.
• “Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann and Georges Metailie: Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China – The Warp and the Weft,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 72:1 (2009),213-216.
• “Eric Hayot, Haun Saussy, and Steven Yao, eds. Sinographies: Writing China,” International Journal of Asian Studies 6:1 (2009), 113-115.
• “ABYSMAL: A Critique of Cartographic Reason by Gunnar Olsson,” World History Connected 6:2 (2009).
  http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/6.2/br_de_weerdt.html
• “Christian Meyer: Ritendiskussionen am Hof der nordlichen Song-Dynastie (1034-1093): zwischen Ritengelehrsamkeit, Machtkampf und intellektuellen Bewegungen,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 72:1 (2009),205-207.
• “From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Moruo and the Chinese Path to Communism by Chen Xiaoming,” The Historian 71:2 (2009), forthcoming.
• “Hong Mai’s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context by Alister D. Inglis,” The China Review, 8:1 (2008), 170-173.

• “Empire at the Margins: Culture, Ethnicity, and Frontier in Early Modern China by Pamela Kyle Crossley, Helen F. Siu, and Donald S. Sutton, eds.” World History Connected 4:2 (2007).
  http://worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu/4.2/br_weerdt.html
• “Emperor Huizong and Late Northern Song China: The Politics of Culture and the Culture of Politics, Patricia Ebrey and Maggie Bickford, eds.” The Chinese Historical Review 14:2 (2007), 310-313.
• “Telling Stories Witchcraft and Scapegoating in Chinese History by Barend J. ter Haar” China Review International, 14:1 (2007), 265-269.
• “Community Schools and the State in Ming China by Sarah Schneewind.” China Review International 14:1 (2007), 220-223.
• “Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China, edited by Cynthia Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow.” SHARP (the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing) News 15:2-3 (2006), 11-12.
• “One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism by Rodney Stark.” World History Connected 3:3 (2006).
  http://worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu/3.3/br_de-weerdt.html
• “Workshop Report: ‘The Early Development of Print Culture in China,’ Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University (April 29-30, 2005).” SHARP News 14:3 (2005), 1-2. Co-authored with Joe Dennis.
• “Publishing, Culture, and Power in Early Modern China by Kai-wing Chow.” Technology and Culture 47 (2006), 192-193.
• “The Chinese Machiavelli: 3000 Years of Chinese Statecraft by Dennis Bloodworth and Ching Ping Bloodworth.” China Information 19:3 (2005), 505-507.
• “The Class of 1761: Examinations, State, and Elites in 18th Century China by Iona Man-cheong.” The Journal of Asian Studies 64:2 (May 2005), 453-454.
• “Historical Records of the Five Dynasties by Richard Davis.” The Medieval Review, http://name.umdl.umich.edu/baj9928.0410.009, October 21, 2004.
• “Academies and Society in Southern Sung China by Linda Walton.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 61:1 (2001), 201-209.

Further Info:

Other Info:

Selected Recent Fellowships and Grants (2005-):

• Senior Research Fellowship, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (2010-2011)
• British Academy Small Research Grant (2010)
• British Academy and Economic and Social Research Council Joint Projects with Partner Academies Award (2008)
• John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund Grant (2008)
• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2006)
• American Council of Learned Societies: American Research in Humanities in the People’s Republic of China Fellowship (2006) (declined)
• Stanford Humanities Center Fellowship (2006)
• Harvard-Yenching Postdoctoral Fellowship in Print Culture and Library Studies, Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University (2004)
• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange Travel Grant (2007)
• Collaborative Research Grant, National Endowment for the Humanities (with Lucille Chia, UC Riverside) (2006)
• “New Perspectives on Chinese History” Conference Grant, American Council of Learned Societies (with Lucille Chia, UC Riverside) (2005)

Recent Panel and Conference Organization (2005-):

• “Networks in Chinese Society: An Interdisciplinary Faculty-Student Workshop,” workshop organized at Pembroke College, funded by the Stanley Ho fund at Pembroke College, Oxford, April 13-14, 2010.
• “Examinations and Divinations: Textbooks and Religious Texts in Imperial China,” panel organized at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, Oxford-Brookes University, Oxford, June 26, 2008.
• “Political Communication and Communicating Politics in Imperial China,” panel organized at The Fifth International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS 5), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 4, 2007.
• “First Impressions: The Cultural History of Print in Imperial China (8th-14th centuries),” conference co-organized with Lucille Chia (UC Riverside), Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies, Harvard University, June 24-27, 2007.
• “Contested Definitions of Medieval Intellectual and Religious Communities,” panel organized at the 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 6, 2005.
• “The Early Development of Print Culture in China,” workshop co-organized with Joseph Dennis (Davidson College) at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies, Harvard University, April 29-30, 2005.
• “Interactions and Images: Cultural Contacts across Eurasia 600-1600,” Fourth Annual MARCO Symposium, symposium co-organized with Tom Burman (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, February 24-25, 2005.

Thinking of a research project in Chinese history or cultural studies? I have worked with undergraduate and graduate students on a variety of topics in Chinese Studies including the local history of the Chinese empire's western border, local religious practices, medical history, medieval Sino-European cultural interactions, the forging of empire under the Qin Dynasty, and publishing in the People's Republic of China. I am particularly interested in working with undergraduate and graduate students on topics relating to imperial Chinese history, the history of information technologies, empires, and intellectual history broadly conceived.