Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue
(See English below)
Zum Jahresabschluss der CrossAsia Talks am 4. Dezember ab 18 Uhr geben Mackenzie Cooley (Hamilton College, USA), Huiyi Wu (Centre Alexandre Koyré, Frankreich), and Shih-Pei Chen (Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin) in ihrem Onlinevortrag „Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue“ einen Einblick in den gleichnamigen Sammelband.
In this talk, Mackenzie Cooley, Huiyi Wu, and Shih-Pei Chen will talk about their recent publication — “Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue” (published in August 2025 by Lever Press). This collective book, edited by Cooley and Wu, brings leading scholars across Latin American and Asian Studies to write about how the two vast empires, separated by thousands of miles, developed comparable systems to gather, order, and write knowledge about their local worlds. Through a new methodology of “juxtapositional comparison,” this book reads the difangzhi 地方志 (local gazetteers) of China and the relaciones geográficas of the Spanish world in parallel. Knowing an Empire does not see the conveyance of information across an empire as a top-down process with an active center as a knowledge-maker. Instead, it amplifies a blend of voices that speak as much to imperial bureaucracy as to the rich local and Indigenous cultures, revealing these two early modern empires as diverse polities whose equilibria were constantly rebalanced among local powers.
We will also give some glimpses into the book chapters, such as the two chapters in „Part 2: Structures of Knowing” that discusses the use of Digital Humanities methods in studying the local gazetteers and the relaciones geográficas.
Die Vortragssprache ist Englisch. Bei Fragen kontaktieren Sie uns unter: ostasienabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de.
Der Vortrag wird via Webex gestreamt*. Sie können am Vortrag über Ihren Browser ohne Installation einer Software teilnehmen. Klicken Sie dazu unten auf „Zum Vortrag“, folgen dem Link „Über Browser teilnehmen“ und geben Ihren Namen ein.
Alle bislang angekündigten Vorträge finden Sie hier. Die weiteren Termine kündigen wir in unserem Blog und auf unserem X-Account, Mastodon und BlueSky an.
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To mark the year-end conclusion of the CrossAsia Talks on December 4, at 6 p.m., Mackenzie Cooley (Hamilton College, USA), Huiyi Wu (Centre Alexandre Koyré, France), and Shih-Pei Chen (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin) will give in their online lecture entitled „Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue“ an insight into the anthology of the same title.
In this talk, Mackenzie Cooley, Huiyi Wu, and Shih-Pei Chen will talk about their recent publication — “Knowing an Empire: Early Modern Chinese and Spanish Worlds in Dialogue” (published in August 2025 by Lever Press). This collective book, edited by Cooley and Wu, brings leading scholars across Latin American and Asian Studies to write about how the two vast empires, separated by thousands of miles, developed comparable systems to gather, order, and write knowledge about their local worlds. Through a new methodology of “juxtapositional comparison,” this book reads the difangzhi 地方志 (local gazetteers) of China and the relaciones geográficas of the Spanish world in parallel. Knowing an Empire does not see the conveyance of information across an empire as a top-down process with an active center as a knowledge-maker. Instead, it amplifies a blend of voices that speak as much to imperial bureaucracy as to the rich local and Indigenous cultures, revealing these two early modern empires as diverse polities whose equilibria were constantly rebalanced among local powers.
We will also give some glimpses into the book chapters, such as the two chapters in „Part 2: Structures of Knowing” that discusses the use of Digital Humanities methods in studying the local gazetteers and the relaciones geográficas.
The lecture will be held in English. If you have any questions, please contact us: ostasienabt@sbb.spk-berlin.de.
The lecture will be streamed via Webex*. You can take part in the lecture using your browser without having to install a special software. Please click on the respective button “To the lecture” below, follow the link “join via browser” (“über Browser teilnehmen”), and enter your name.
You can find all previously announced lectures here. We will announce further dates in our blog and on X, Mastodon and BlueSky.
