Associate Prof Thomas Jansen MA, DPhil

• Lecturer in Chinese Studies
• Confucius Institute Director
• Programme Director BA Chinese Studies
• Admissions Tutor Chinese Studies

• DPhil. University of Munich (2000)
• MA University of Munich (1991)

• European Association of Chinese Studies (Board Member)
• American Oriental Society
• Deutsche Vereinigung für Chinastudien
• Early Medieval China Group
• Tang Studies Society
• Society for the Study of Early China
• CHINET (University of Olomouc, Czech Republic)

My main teaching interests are in the field of pre-modern Chinese history and culture, in particular the Six Dynasties period and Chinese religions.

My research interests cut broadly across the fields of history, religion and literature in China. One of my two research foci is court culture in the Six Dynasties Period (AD 220-589), in particular the Southern Dynasties (Nanchao). My interest in this field has been sparked, among others, by the work of German medievalist Gerd Althoff on symbolic communication in medieval Europe. What are the rules, values and forms of communication that govern life at court in early medieval China?

I am also working on sectarian religious texts, “Precious Scrolls” (baojuan 寶卷) from the Ming and Qing dynasties. A monograph with the working title Religious Text Production in Late Imperial China: Social, Religious, and Performative Aspects of Chinese Sectarian Scriptures from the 16th to 19th centuries will explore the manifold interactions between religious texts and their users during that time.

My study of the baojuanhas led to my participation in an international network of scholars working on the question of “Globalisation and the Transformation of the Religious Field in China, 1800-Present” (https://www.geschkult.fu-berlin.de/e/oas/sinologie/forschung/projekte/religion/index.html). I am currently co-editing a conference volume entitled Chinese Religions in the Age of Globalization, 1800-Present (with Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer) which will be published by Brill USA in 2010.

Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present. Edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer. Boston: Brill, 2014.

“Sectarian Responses to Foreign Presence in China in the Nineteenth Century: The Wanbao baojuan 萬寳寶卷 (1858) and other examples.” In: Globalization and the Making of Religious Modernity in China: Transnational Religions, Local Agents, and the Study of Religion, 1800-Present. Edited by Thomas Jansen, Thoralf Klein and Christian Meyer. Boston: Brill, 2014.

“Yutai xinyong” 玉臺新詠. Six Dynasties Handbook. Ed. by Albert E. Dien et al. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, [forthcoming 2014].

“Sacred Text.” In: The Blackwell Companion to Chinese Religions. Ed. by Randall L. Nadeau. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 285-308.

“Das China der Nach-Han-Zeit” [China: From the Fall of Han to AD 600]. In: WBG Weltgeschichte [World History]. Vol. 2: Antike Welten und neue Reiche. Ed. by Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009, 429-462.

“New Tendencies, Religious and Philosophical, in the Chinese World of the Third through Sixth Centuries.” In: Conceiving the Empire: China and Rome Compared. Ed. by Fritz-Heiner Mutschler and Achim Mittag. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, 397-419.

“The Art of Severing Relationships (juejiao) in Early Medieval China.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 126:3 (2006), 347-365.

Confucius Institute grant (£10,000) to hold conference“Beyond the Market: Exploring Religious Fields in Modern China”, Centre for Chinese Studies, University of Wales Lampeter, 20-22 November 2009

Chiang Ching-kuo conference grant (€12.000) to hold a conference on “Chinese Religions and Globalisation, 1800-Present”, 3-6 July 2008 in Cambridge

British Academy “Small research grant” (£7500) for conference on “Chinese Religions and Globalisation, 1800-Present”.