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Reconstructing Early Global Perspectives: Workshop on “China around the World in the 17th and 18th Century”

Sponsored by the Simon Suen Foundation, the workshop on “China around the World in the 17th and 18th Century,” was successfully hosted by the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology from 6 to 7 December, 2025. Convened by Dr. Eszter Csillag, Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Academy, the event gathered twelve experts and scholars from Mainland China, Hong Kong, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and other regions. Through interdisciplinary perspectives they revisited the formation, circulation, and dissemination of Chinese culture and its imagery across the world during the 17th and 18th centuries.

The two-day workshop was structured around three core thematic sessions. The morning session on the first day, entitled “War, State Security, and Religion,” featured scholarly examinations of diverse topics. These included the martial turn in early Qing lacquer screen visual art, the Qianlong Emperor’s global vision, the impact of the “Tartar moment” triggered by the Ming-Qing transition on European intellectual understandings of China, the material life and living costs within South China's Catholic communities in the late 17th century, and the reconstruction of Chinese Muslim identities across the dynastic change. These presentations illuminated the multifaceted interactions and syntheses of cultures amidst profound political and military upheaval.

The subsequent session, entitled “Maps and Geography,” centered on the production and dissemination of cartographic knowledge. Scholars re-examined mapmaking activities in the mid-17th century, analyzing how divergent political stances constructed distinct “images of China” for European audiences through cartography. Discussions also extended to the political implications of diplomatic gift exchanges between the Qing court and European monarchies. The day concluded with a visit to the special exhibition “Engaging Past Wisdom: Min Chiu Society at Sixty-five” at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. The exhibition brought together treasured works from the collections of Min Chiu Society members, including calligraphy, paintings, ceramics, and scholar’s objects. Through perspectives ranging from Sino-Western aesthetic interactions to cross-regional collecting traditions, the scholars re-examined the historical context of early Chinese art within global circulation.

On the second day of the workshop, the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology was honored to receive special arrangements from the Director of the Hong Kong Palace Museum. With the professional guidance of the museum’s staff, participating scholars visited three exhibition galleries: “From Dawn to Dusk: Life and Art in the Forbidden City,” “Brilliance: Ming Dynasty Ceramic Treasures from the Palace Museum, 1368–1644,” and “The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Art of Armaments — Qing Dynasty Military Collection from The Palace Museum.”

This site visit directly complemented the workshop’s academic themes, allowing scholars to examine 17th- and 18th-century material culture and imperial order from multiple perspectives—including Qing court life, Ming ceramic artistry, and Qing military institutions. These insights deepened the understanding of the period’s knowledge systems and provided rich context for the final session, “Books.” Focusing on publications from the 17th and early 18th centuries, participants analyzed how knowledge in fields such as Chinese botany, “fragments of stone cliffs made by Art,” herbal medicine, and pulse diagnosis imagery circulated to Europe through illustrated books, acquiring new meanings through translation and republication. By examining rare materials from institutions like the British Library, the session vividly illustrated how books functioned as “mobile museums,” embedding Chinese visual and scientific knowledge into global intellectual networks.

Participants:

Cam SHARP JONES, Visual Arts Curator, Asian and African Collections, The British Library

Clifford PEREIRA, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG); Member of Collections Board of Royal Geographical Society

Dawn ODELL, Professor of Art History, Lewis and Clark College, Portland

Gianamar GIOVANNETTI SINGH, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam

James D. FRANKEL, Associate Professor, Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, Faculty of Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Ka Chai TAM, Associate Professor, Academy of Chinese, History, Religion and Philosophy, Hong Kong Baptist University

Lianming WANG, Associate Professor, Department of Chinese and History, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong

Marco CABOARA, Senior Lecturer, Division of Humanities, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Mario CAMS, Associate Professor, Chinese Studies, KU Leuven

Shanshan CHEN, Associate Professor of Art History, Shandong University of Arts

Yijie HUANG, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of History, University of Heidelberg

Zhiwei WANG, Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Chief Editor of Department of Court History, The Forbidden City Publishing House