Minghui's Blogs

My friend Xiaowei Zheng's review  of Cosmopolitanism in China, 1600–1950 is published on  Frontiers of Literary Studies in China  Volume 13, issue 1 (January 2019): 157–164. We appreciate her insightful critique that our theoretical use of cosmopolitanism remains incoherent and somewhat shallow. To clarify our editorial principle, I would like to borrow some lines from R. Bin Wong's review of our book: "The volume shows the meanings of cosmopolitanism for different kinds of people in Qing China, including Manchus, Muslims, Koreans (in relation to the Qing, if not in the Qing). It further explicates the multiple framings within which different modalities of cosmopolitanism were achieved, including Buddhist and Confucian. It also shows cosmopolitanism not merely as a feature of thought, but suggests implications of such approaches in matters of governance." Please see Cambria Press' link to our book. It has been three years since the volume was published in 20...

I left Guangzhou for Jinan, Shandong and delivered a talk to an exciting audience on the nexus of Confucianism and science. My host took me to the Archaeological Museum of Shandong University. It was very impressive!!

Thanks to my friend An Dongqiang 安东强, I delivered two talks at the Department of History in Sun Yat-sen University. It was great to meet so many interesting friends and to see Guangzhou for the first time!

Thanks to my friend and colleague Professor Ishii Tsuyoshi, I am leaving on Nov 29 for Tokyo to teach an intensive seminar on the Komaba campus. I will also give a talk on Dec 22, hosted by Professor Ito Takayuki. For details, please see the flyers in Japanese.

I have reviewed about ten books for different journals and read many book reviews in the past two decades. I am pretty certain that I have received a "glowing" review from Professor Dagmar Schäfer. What I am about to say is not really a disclaimer but an appreciation of how academic review system actually works in my case. I never met Professor Schäfer and have virtually no professional relationship with her. Of course Professor Schäfer's reputation proceeds her. I have read and admired her award-winning book and assigned part of it to my undergraduate students before. I have also heard good things about her. For instance, my co-editor Johan Elverskog spoke highly of her work. More importantly, China's Transition to Modernity had not been reviewed by a historian of science until hers appears on Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies in June 2018. To be recognized and appreciated by an outstanding fellow historian whose expertise falls squarely in my field is qui...

I just came across Jee Hyun Noe's  positive review  of my book. Much appreciated. Noe, Jee Hyun. “Minghui Hu:  China’s Transition to Modernity: The New Classical Vision of Dai Zhen . Xi, 285 Pp. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 2015, $50. ISBN 978 0 295 99476 5.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 79, no. 03 (October 2016): 695–97. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X16000884.