Science, civilization, and the origins of European sinology examines the emergence of European scholarship on Chinese science and civilization through the prism of a controversy over the Passion Eclipse, a debate born in the shadows that, according to the synoptic gospels, covered the land until Jesus spoke his last words. Some seventeen centuries later, a Jesuit missionary shockingly suggested that the pagan Chinese might shed light on an event at the very heart of Christian belief, for their historical records for the same year and month as the crucifixion told of a solar eclipse that had occurred against the natural course of the stars. In response, citizens of the early modern Republic of Letters gradually computed and conjectured their way to increasingly sophisticated evaluations of China's scientific traditions. The project will use the Chinese Passion Eclipse controversy as a window into the ways in which early modern European scholars confronted Chinese natural knowledge.
Intellectual merit
Mapping the correspondence networks of the central participants in the Chinese Passion Eclipse controversy will provide a fresh perspective into the formation of sinological communities in early modern Europe, one that emphasizes dynamics of intellectual sociability over confessional divides or a nascent orientalism. The project also builds on recent studies of reading, collecting, and scientific practices to examine how these scholars applied a variety of interpretive tools to dissect claims concerning Chinese science's venerable antiquity and to construct narratives about its perceived stagnation. And in moving beyond sinophilic and sinophobic labels, the project advances a fine-grained approach to processes of cultural exchange in the history of science by drawing on recent work in manuscript and print culture to analyze texts as material artifacts that make tangible complex histories of knowledge production and reception.
Broader impacts
The project will provide researchers, educators, students, and broad readerships with a methodologically and pedagogically innovative model for historical studies of cross-cultural scientific exchange. Plans for disseminating the project's results include a monograph addressed to specialist and general audiences and a contribution to an American Historical Association publication series that makes issues in world history accessible to students and educators at the secondary and post-secondary levels.
