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International conference
Seafaring, Trade, and Knowledge Transfer
Maritime Politics and Commerce in Early Middle Period to Early Modern China
4-5 July 2017
Culture and Convention Center Het Pand, Priorzaal
Onderbergen 1, Ghent
Concept
The conference is part of a research project we have been carrying out since early 2014. This project is sponsored by the Gerda Henkel Foundation and focuses on the investigation of the qualitative characteristics and changes of China’s maritime commerce and politics over time (c. 7th to 18th centuries) and space. In our research, we especially focus on periods of significant changes or “transitions”. In addition, the integrative perspective of China’s foreign networks and the interaction of Chinese and foreign agents, analysing the practice of local trade and knowledge (science) transfer, the specific inter-relation between seafaring and socio-economic and political-military purposes of Chinese governments are of particular importance.
Programme
Tuesday, 4 July
08:15-8:50
Registration
08:50-9:00
Opening Remarks by Angela SCHOTTENHAMMER
Session 1: Administration and Politics (chair: Angela Schottenhammer)
9:00-10:00
Paola CALANCA (EFEO, France): Family Strategies during the Ming-Qing Transition: Focus on Sea Coastal’s Minnan Region
Robert J. ANTONY (Guangzhou University, China): Mountains, Rivers, and Sea: Canton and the Lianyang Trading System in Historical Perspective
10:00-10:30
Coffee break
10:30-12:00
John CHAFFEE (Binghamton University, NY, USA): Song and Yuan Maritime Administration Compared: Implications for Knowledge Transfer
Tansen SEN (City University of New York, NY, USA): The Mongols and the Changing Patterns of Indian Ocean Connections
Leonard BLUSSÉ (Leiden University, The Netherlands): Shreds of Chinese Business Correspondence: A Collection of Letters sent by the Yanghang of Xiamen
12:00-12:30
Discussion
12:30-13:30
Lunch break
Session 2: People and their Environment (chair: Leonard Blussé)
13:30-14:30
Ellen Xiangyu CAI (Guangzhou University, China): On the Negotiation on the Translation of the Dutch Letter of Credence to the Qianlong Emperor in 1794
Patrizia CARIOTI (Università di Napoli l’Orientale, Italy): The Intriguing World of the Tōjin in Nagasaki in the 16th-18th centuries
14:30-15:00
Coffee break
15:00-16:30
MA Guang (Shandong University, China): Free Market, Natural Disasters, Climate Change, and the Wokou in Yuan China
Mathieu TORCK (Ghent University, Belgium): Qi Jiguang and the Defense of China’s Sea Border during the Ming Dynasty
XU Zhexin (Salzburg University, Austria): Publication of Medical Texts in Fujian During the Ming Dynasty
16:30-17:00
Discussion
Wednesday, 5 July
Session 3: Transfer of Knowledge and Technologies: Cartography and Nautics (chair: Timothy Brook)
09:00-10:00
Radu LECA (Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, United Kingdom): Imaginary Islands on East Asian Cartographic Sources from 15th to 17th Centuries
Timothy BROOK (University of British Columbia, Canada): Mapping from the Water: Navigation and Global Cartography in the Ming
10:00-10:30
Coffee break
10:30-11:30
CHENG Weichung (Academia Sinica, Taipei): The VOC Nautical Investigations and Hydrographical Charting on China Coast and Taiwan between 1652 and 1668
Elke PAPELITZKY (Salzburg University, Austria): Seafaring Knowledge of Ming Literati: the Scholarly Dissemination of Sea Route Descriptions
11:30-12:00
Discussion
12:00-13:00
Lunch break
Session 4: Trade with the Indian Ocean World (chair: Manel Ollé)
13:00-14:30
Ubaldo IACCARINO (Università di Napoli l’Orientale, Italy): The Sino-Japanese Trade in the Philippines and its actors between the 16th and 17th Centuries
Manel OLLÉ (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain): Transformation in the Commercial Projection of Manila in East Asia throughout the 17th Century
LI Man (Gerda Henkel Foundation, Germany): Southern Han’s “Bad Money” in the Java Sea: Possible Logic for the Southward Money Flow in Early 10th Century
14:30-15:00
Coffee break
15:00-16:30
KIMURA Jun (Tokai University, Japan) and Mark STANIFORTH (Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia): Maritime Archaeological Evidence of the Early and Medieval South China Sea’s Commerce and Political Events in Vietnam
John GUY (Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, USA): Crossroads of Asian Long Distance Exchange: Shipwreck Evidence of the 9th and 10th Centuries in the Java Sea Realm
Wim DE WINTER (Ghent University, Belgium): The Ostend Company and its Worlds: Trading Communities and Courtly Authority in 18th Century Canton and Bengal
16:30-18:30 Global Comparions
Angela SCHOTTENHAMMER (Salzburg University, Austria): Was Traditional China’s Maritime Politics (Proto-)Colonialist?
Koen VERBOVEN (Ghent University): Imperial Seas: Rome, the Mediterranean and Seas Beyond, from Augustus (27 BC – AD 14) to Justinian I (AD 527 – 565)
Michael LIMBERGER (Ghent University): China’s antipode?: Seafaring, Trade and Maritime Connections in the North Sea area in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
Jean BOURGEOIS (Ghent University): Geoarcheological Research in the Turfan Oasis