Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies
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Institute for Missiology and the Study of Theologies Beyond Europe
Website
In cooperation with
Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics"
Website
Asian Studies Centre
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Prof. em. Cho Kwang, Korea University:
Woven Devotion: Korean Catholics and the Fabric of Social Transformation
Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Speziale, EHESS Paris:
Islamic Genealogies of Indic Professions: Reconsidering Persian Pseudonymous Texts in South Asia
PD Dr. Thoralf Klein, Loughborough University:
The Missionary Engagement in Knowledge Transfer: Political, Social and Cultural Frameworks
| 13:30 – 14:30 | Registration | |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Official Welcome | |
| 15:00 – 16:00 | Keynote PD Dr. Thoralf Klein (Loughborough University) |
The Missionary Engagement in Knowledge Transfer: Political, Social and Cultural Frameworks |
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Coffee Break | |
| 16:30 – 18:00 | Panel 1 – 3: Missionary Movement and Interreligious Dialogue | |
| Panel 1: Cross-Cultural Evangelism in the Early Modern Period | ||
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Emy Merin Joy (Central European University, Wien) |
The Jesuit Mission and Interreligious Polemics in Malabar: The Paravur Dialogues and the Transmission of Anti-Jewish Thought (16th–17th Centuries) |
| 17:00 – 17:30 | Marietta Chikhladze (Ilia State University) |
The Role of Catholic Missionaries in Transferring the Knowledge about the Indo-Persian Region to Early Modern Europe |
| 17:30 – 18:00 | Maia Damenia (Ilia State University) |
Knowledge Transfer in Transregional Religious Contexts: Catholic Missionary Networks and the Case of Georgia in the Early Modern Period |
| Panel 2: Religious Educational Ideals | ||
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Chen Zhenzi (FU Berlin) |
The Protestant Missionary Institution "The Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge Among the Chinese (guangxuehu 廣學會)", the Discourse of "Western Learning", and the Conceptualization of Modern Periodicals in Chinese Context |
| 17:00 – 17:30 | Kenneth Lau Siu Hang (Chinese University of Hongkong) |
The Role of Catholic Missionaries in Transferring the Knowledge about the Indo-Persian Region to Early Modern Europe |
| 17:30 – 18:00 | Lisa Kerl (University of Münster) |
N.N. |
| Panel 3: Reimagining Tradition | ||
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Beate Löffler (TU Dortmund) |
Implicit Christianity, Explicit Japan-ness. Knowledge Transfers in Modernizing Japan |
| 17:00 – 17:30 | Han Caiqiong (University of Münster) |
Cross-cultural Interpretation of Chinese and Western Classical Scriptures by the German Missionary Ernst Faber in the Late Qing Dynasty |
| 17:30 – 18:00 | Ma Tianji (Church University Wuppertal) |
Epistemological Transformation and Cultural Negotiation: The Revolutionary Impact of the London Missionary Society Press (墨海书馆) in Late Qing China |
| 18:30 | Dinner | |
| 10:00 – 11:00 | Keynote Prof. em. Cho Kwang (Korea University) |
Woven Devotion: Korean Catholics and the Fabric of Social Transformation |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Coffee Break | |
| 11:30 – 13:00 | Panel 4 – 6: Translation and Circulation of Texts | |
| Panel 4: Cross-Cultural Evangelism in the Early Modern Period | ||
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Jean Arzoumanov (University of Chicago) |
Persian Translations of Yoga Texts within North Indian Hindu Religious Communities (18th-century) |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Haila Manteghi (University of Münster) |
Knowledge Transfer in Early Modern Mughal India: The Case of Ādāb alsalṭanat (dated 1609) by Jerome Xavier SJ |
| 12:30 – 13:00 | Florian Neitmann (University of Münster) |
Anchoring Syriac in India: The Konat Collection as a Vehicle for Knowledge Transfer |
| Panel 5: Reinterpreting Canonical Texts | ||
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Yukun Zeng (University of Michigan) |
Reading Classics, Para-Classical Writing, and Trans-Strait Grassroots Confucianism: Or the Radical Movements of Classical Texts |
| 12:00 – 12:30 |
Marcus Schmücker |
Ananta Kṛṣṇa Śāstrī and Vedānta as a Case of Religious Knowledge Transfer |
| 12:30 – 13:00 | Yangyang Lan (École Practique des Hautes Études) |
An Attempt to Combine Western and Eastern Morality: Yang Zhongyu 楊鐘鈺's Editing of Moral Books in Early 20th Century China |
| Panel 6: Doctrinal Disputes | ||
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Nishimura Yoshiya (Ryukoku University) |
On the Controversy of the Pure Land Buddhism Thought in Eastern Japan during the Kamakura Period |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Kerstin Storm (University of Münster) |
N.N. |
| 13:00 – 14:00 | Lunch Break | |
| 14:00 – 15:30 | Panel 7 – 9: Theoretical Foundations and Emerging Technologies | |
| Panel 7: Jesuit Transmission of European Scholarship | ||
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Han Qijin (University of Tübingen) |
"Acknowledge God and Understand Heaven": How Qi-Oriented Cosmology Encountered Jesuit Meteorology in Ming-Qing China |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Zhongyuan Hu (KU Leuven) |
Savouring Knowledge: Jesuit Missionaries' Intercultural Translation and Transmission of Chinese Edible Plants in Early Modern Europe |
| Panel 8: Merging Principles and Tradition | ||
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Qijun Zheng (École Pratique des Hautes Études) |
When a Towel Factory Meets the New Gospel of Health: Intercultural Acquisition of Fasting Knowledge and Practices in Modern China |
| 14:30 - 15:00 | Sebastian Eicher (Ca'Foscari University Venice) |
Literary Graduates and the Study of Western History in Treaty-Port Shanghai |
| 15:00 – 15:30 | Norbert Hintersteiner (University of Münster) |
N.N. |
| Panel 9: Rethinking Conceptual Models | ||
| 14:00 – 14:30 | Youngpa Kwon (Sogang University) |
Between Resistance and Reception: Catholicism and Donghak (Eastern Learning) Responses to Social Darwinism in Early 20th-Century Korea |
| 14:30 – 15:00 | Weng Haifeng (University of Göttingen) |
Radical Left and Confucian Conservatism: Two Interpretations of Bergson's Philosophy in 1920s China |
| 15:00 – 15:30 | Richard Ellguth (FU Berlin) |
The ABC of Religions: Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Scholarship and the Shaping of Religious Literacy, 1920-1949 |
| 15:30 – 16:00 | Coffee Break | |
| 16:00 – 17:30 | Panel 10 – 12: Material Culture in Religious Encounters | |
| Panel 10: Perspectives on Buddhist Scriptures | ||
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Chialin Aoki (International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, Tokyo) |
Literati and Commentaries in the Tang dynasty from the Perspective of the Old Japanese Manuscripts of Buddhist Scriptures |
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Michael Kinadeter (University of Hamburg) |
Succession Documents in Japanese Zen-Buddhism |
| 17:00 – 17:30 | Keiryu Fukami (Ryukoku University) |
Critical Studies of Scriptures by 13th-Century Japanese Monks |
| Panel 11: Space and Ritual | ||
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Markus Rüsch (University of Münster) |
Western Influences on Buddhist Ritual during Japan's Modernisation _Design and Sound_ |
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Mae Maske (Goethe University Frankfurt) |
Glocalizing Humanistic Buddhism |
| 17:00 v 17:30 | Chen Chiayu (Chung Tai World Museum, Taiwan) |
Facilitating Colonial Governance through Shrine Visits in Early 20th Century Taiwan |
| Panel 12: Materiality and Community Practice | ||
| 16:00 – 16:30 | Denise Gubitosi (University of Vienna) |
Matteo Ricci, Diego de Pantoja and Art in China |
| 16:30 – 17:00 | Wong Tsz (Kiel University) |
"Noodles and Knowledge": Embodied Relief and Intercultural Knowledge Transfer in Postwar Hongkong |
| 17:00 – 17:30 | Richard Yu-Cheng Shih (Harvard University) |
Sacred Fluidity: Knowledge-Making of Water across the French Jesuits, Local Ritualist Healers, and Their Followers in the Modern China, 1860-1930 |
| 18:30 | Dinner | |
| 09:00 – 10:00 | Keynote Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Speziale (EHESS Paris) |
Islamic Genealogies of Indic Professions: Reconsidering Persian Pseudonymous Texts in South Asia |
| 10:00 – 10:30 | Coffee Break | |
| 10:30 – 12:00 | Panel 13 – 15: Intercultural Religious Practice | |
| Panel 13: Acculturation and Appropriation | ||
| 10:30 – 11:00 | Hendrik Johannemann (FU Berlin) |
Dynamic and Continuous Alike: The Transnational Connections and Framing Strategies of the South Korean Anti-LGBT Movement |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Yu Lu (Leipzig University) |
Reinventing Tradition: Spirit-writing and Sacred Texts in the "Cloud Nest" Altars around Jin'gai Mount (1874-1927) |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Tianhui Ma (LMU München) |
"Why Do I Forget my Teacher?": Learning and Forgetting Tibetan Lamas |
| Panel 14: Individual Agency | ||
| 10:30 – 11:00 | Prosper Malangmei (Indiara Gandhi National Tribal University) |
Rabindranath Tagore in China: Spirituality, Civilisation, and the Modernist Debate |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Judy Lee (ERCCT Tübingen) |
Refugee, Religion, and Knowledge Creation: Ingen Ryūki's Transformation and Influence in Japan |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Quan Chenle (Hunan University) |
The Religious Stance of Ming Confucian Scholar Zhan Ruoshui |
| Panel 15: Multivalent Society | ||
| 10:30 – 11:00 | Nilufer E. Bharucha (University of Mumbai) |
Parsi Zoroastrians: An Ancient Iranian People in an Indian Diaspora |
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Sridhar Rajeswaran (University of Mumbai) |
India: The Land of Contrapuntal Harmonies |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Anton Terhechte (FU Berlin) |
Networks and Newspapers: Print, Counterpublics, and Muslim Self-Representation in Post-Mao China |
| 12:00 – 12:30 | Closing Remarks | |
| 12:30 | Lunch | |
Please register at knowledgetransfer2025@uni-muenster.de.
Heereman'scher Hof
(University of Münster Professional School)
Königsstraße 47
48143 Münster
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Download Call for Papers [PDF]
Religious traditions have long served as dynamic vehicles for the transfer and transformation of cultural knowledge across societies. In 19th and 20th century Asia, profound political, social, and cultural changes affected interactions between religious actors, institutions, and ideas, fostering unprecedented movements of knowledge within and beyond religious communities. This conference seeks to explore the mechanisms, actors, spaces and outcomes of intercultural knowledge transfer with a particular focus on East Asian and Indo-Persian regions. By examining these processes, the conference aims to deepen our understanding of how religious frameworks influenced the production, adaptation, and dissemination of knowledge across cultures. We invite papers that engage with the central question: How did religious contexts facilitate the transfer and transformation of knowledge in, about and across Asia from early modern times to the 20th century?
Contributors are encouraged to address this overarching question through the following sub-questions:
(1.) Actors and networks: Who were the key actors (e.g., clergy, missionaries, scholars, laypersons) involved in the transfer of knowledge? What educational background did they have? What networks, institutions, or informal structures enabled, influenced or obstructed these exchanges?
(2.) Content and media: What forms of knowledge were acquired and how have they been transferred? Was a distinction between secular and religious/sacred knowledge made and how did it shape the process of knowledge acquisition and its transfer? What kind of knowledge was prioritized and what information was deliberately or unconsciously held back? Were there any censorship measures applied and by whom? Which media were used for knowledge transfer?
(3.) Transfer processes: How were texts, oral traditions, rituals etc. employed as vehicles of knowledge? Who were the recipients of transferred knowledge and how did it shape the mindscape of its recipients? To what extent did these processes lead to innovation, resistance, or syncretism?
Due to our own research focuses, we are particularly interested in the regions of China/East Asia and Indo-Persia but are open to proposals dealing with other regions in Asia in transregional and comparative perspectives. We welcome contributions from scholars across disciplines, including Anthropology, History, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, Mission Studies, Religious Studies, Sinology, Theology etc. Early career researchers and advanced doctoral students are particularly encouraged to apply.
Submission Guidelines:
We kindly request the submission of abstracts by 30 April 2025. Abstracts should not exceed 250-300 words. Please include the author’s name, affiliation, email contact, and a short biography. The conference language is English. Presentations should be 20 minutes length. Successful applicants will be notified by the end of May 2025.
Unfortunately, travel and accommodation costs cannot be covered. However, for early-career researchers, i.e. doctoral students and postdocs, we are offering up to 10 scholarships providing a maximum of 1000 Euros in support. If such is desired, we kindly request a motivational letter and a CV as part of the application.
Please send abstracts to: knowledgetransfer2025@uni-muenster.de.