East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM - Universität Tübingen)
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Ancient Chinese People’s Knowledge of Macrofungi during the Period from 220 to 589
Get PDFTo explore the knowledge of macrofungi in ancient China from 220 to 589, several aspects are studied in detail, including the meanings of ancient Chinese characters or words for macrofungi, naturalistic descriptions of macrofungi, the earliest record of the cultivation of macrofungi, the earliest record of the custom of eating macrofungi in Taiwan Island, methods of cooking macrofungi dishes, macrofungi in literature, and macrofungi in Taoist texts. More kinds of macrofungi are mentioned in the various works of this period than in earlier works, including the earliest record of the cultivation of fuling 茯苓 (Wolfiporia cocos), as well as the earliest record of the custom of eating monkey head mushroom (houtou gu 猴頭菇; Hericium erinaceus). There are two intriguing Taoist monographs of great significance for the history of zhi 芝 in Taoist literature. Moreover, the stories about lingzhi 靈芝 (Ganoderma lucidum) in Chinese literature indicate that macrofungi were not only lauded by poets, but also used by them to represent virtues
Wang Xiaotong on Right Triangles: Six Problems from ‘Continuation of Ancient Mathematics’ (Seventh Century AD)
Get PDFWang Xiaotong’s 王孝通 Jigu suanjing 緝古算經 is primarily concerned with problems in solid and plane geometry leading to polynomial equations which are to be solved numerically using a procedure similar to Horner’s Method. We translate and analyze here six problems in plane geometry. In each case the solution is derived using a dissection of a 3-dimensional object. We suggest an interpretation of one fragmentary comment which at first sight appears to refer to a dissection of a 4-dimensional object
Roderich Ptak, Birds and Beasts in Chinese Texts and Trade: Lectures Related to South China and the Overseas World
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Florence С. Hsia, Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China
Get PDFBiblical Chronology and the Transmission of the Theory of Six “World Ages” to China: Gezhi Aolüe 格致奧略 (Outline of the mystery [revealed through] natural science; before 1723)
Get PDFThis article is primarily concerned with the question of what kind of text Gezhi aolüe 格致奧略 (Outline of the mystery [revealed through] natural science), a unique ms. copy (1820) from the Zikawei Library in Shanghai and published for the first time in 1996, precisely is. Gezhi aolüe appears to be older than 1820 (dating to before 1723), and to be a summary of one of the “Manila incunabula” (as Van der Loon called them), viz. Gewu qiongli bianlan 格物窮理便覽 (Handy compendium for investigating things and extending knowledge, 1607) composed by the Dominican friar Tomás Mayor for the Minnan-speaking Chinese in Manila, which in turn is based on Luis de Granada’s Introducción del Símbolo de la Fe (1583). The article further concentrates on the biblical chronology (Vulgata) embedded in a scheme of six “world ages” (from Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Salomo, and Zerubbabel to Christ) that Gewu qiongli bianlan presents (a chronology not found in the Introducción). Due to the absence, at that time, of a Chinese translation of the Bible and especially of the Old Testament, Gezhi aolüe (as well as the ms. Renlei yuanliu 人類源流 (The origin of mankind) that seems to be based on Mayor’s text too) that was not compiled by Western missionaries reproduces for quite a number of less well-known names in the genealogy from Adam to Christ the Minnan or Hokkien ‘transliterations’ used in Gewu qiongli bianlan. The article concludes with two appendices:1) a survey of which biblical chronology Chinese Christian texts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries use: the Vulgata chronology (the world was created some 4000 years before Christ), or the Septuagint chronology (the world was created some 5200 years before Christ); and2) a reproduction of the genealogy of Christ (in Chinese and, of course, not using Minnan transliterations) that Carlo di Orazio da Castorano, a Franciscan missionary in Shandong, had printed in 1704 (the only known copy is preserved in the Vatican Library, see frontispiece and additional file under "Supplements" at the end of the table of contents)
Johanna Hood, HIV/AIDS, Health and the Media in China: Imagined Immunity Through Racialized Disease
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Epilogue: Textiles, Technology, and Gender in China
Get PDFThe seminal research of Francesca Bray (1997) and Susan Mann (1992, 1997) on women and domestic work, especially textiles, have inspired a generation of new research in cultural history and art history, and the articles presented in this special issue attest to the productivity of this emergent field of inquiry. But curiously, historians of science and technology—Bray’s intended audience—have been slow in embracing gender in their research agendas (with the notable exception of historians of medicine.) The reasons for this lacuna are complex, but the three articles gathered here suggest at least one answer: that one cannot take gender and women seriously without questioning existing paradigms about innovation, knowledge-making, and skills, and thus the very meanings of “science” and “technology.