A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun by Thierry Meynard

A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun by Thierry Meynard

This book represents the first critical edition and scholarly annotated translation of a pioneering report on the predicament of cross-cultural understanding at the dawn of globalization, titled “A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun” (“Resposta breve sobre as Controversias do Xámtý, Tien Xîn, Lîm hoên”), which was written in China by the Sicilian Jesuit missionary Niccolò Longobardo (1565–1654) in the 1620s and profoundly influenced Enlightenment understandings of Asian philosophy.

The book restores the focus on Longobardo’s own intellectual concerns, while also reproducing and analyzing all the Chinese-language annotations on the previously unpublished Portuguese and Latin manuscripts. Moreover, it meticulously modernizes all romanizations with standard Hanyu pinyin and identifies, on the basis of archival research, most of Longobardo’s Chinese interlocutors, thus providing new insights into how the Jesuits networked with Chinese scholars in the late Ming. In this way, it opens up this seminal text to Sinologists and global historians exploring Europe’s first intellectual exchanges with China.

In addition, the book presents four introductory essays, written by the editors and two prominent scholars on the Jesuit China mission. These essays comprehensively reconstruct the historical and intellectual context of Longobardo’s report, stressing that it cannot be viewed purely as a product of Sino-European cultural exchange, but also as an outgrowth of both exegetic debates within Europe and of European experiences across Asia, especially in Japan. Hence this critical edition will greatly contribute to a more globalized view of the Jesuit China mission.

This book is the first detailed study of Niccolo Longobardos (15651654) Brief Response, a controversial and explosive report that changed the history of the Jesuit China missionThis book offers unique insights into the early modern debate over the translatability of thought and is suitable for specialists and those interested in the history of Christianity in China and the history of cultural exchanges between China and the West in general. (Wei Xiong, Religious Studies Review, Vol. 49 (3), September, 2023)

Sher-shiueh Li received his PhD in comparative literature from University of Chicago and is now a Research Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, as well as at the Research Center of Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also a member of the faculty of Translation and Interpretation, Taiwan Normal University; Cross-Cultural Studies, Catholic Fu Jen University. In addition to numerous papers and books on Chinese and Western literatures, Li has published books in both English and Chinese.
Thierry Meynard is a professor at the Sun Yat-sen University, China, where he teaches Western Philosophy and Latin Classics. He is the vice-director of Sun Yat-sen University's Archive for the Introduction of Western Knowledge, as well as the director of the Beijing Center for Chinese Studies. He studied philosophy and theology at Centre S�vres, Paris, and at the Catholic Fu Jen University, Taiwan. He obtained his PhD in Philosophy from Peking University.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9789811604508
ISBN 10	9811604509
Title	A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun
Author	Thierry Meynard
Series	Palgrave Studies In Comparative Global History
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Springer Verlag, Singapore
Year published	2021-08-04
Number of pages	375
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.