Within the research work at the National Palace Museum in Taibei, which encompasses one of the largest collections of Chinese artifacts and artworks in the world, the author held a lecture on East-Asia collections in Slovenia and presented project, entitled „Identification, Categorization and Digitization of East Asian Art, Historical Collections and Other Materials in Slovenia“. The project will include East Asian collections, other materials and resources which presently exist in various museums and other institutions in the Republic of Slovenia and will carry out identification, categorization and digitalization of all the art collections and individual objects stored in different museums and institutions in Slovenia. In the lecture author presented 12 Chinese collections from different museums and further presented in details 3 relevant collections: Alma Karlin`s collection, collection of Buddhist statutes and objects, which were collected at the beginning of the 20th century by a missionary Peter Baptist Turk and collection of Ivan Skušek. Skušek collection of ca. 500 mostly Chinese art objects is the biggest collection of Chinese artworks in Slovenia. It includes valuable court furniture, richly embroidered clothes and embroidery, Chinese and Tibetan Buddhist statues, porcelain wares, paintings, ancient coins, instruments, album of photography of Beijing from the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century, a detailed academic research book on architecture and its decoration from Forbidden city, which was published by Tokyo Imperial University in 1906 and many other valuable objects.
B.05 Guest lecturer at an institute/university
COBISS.SI-ID: 54024290Jana Rošker’s guest lecture at the Vienna University dealt with the idea of harmonious society which represents the core of contemporary social ideologies in the P. R. China. Although the concept of harmony which serves as the foundation of this idea has often been explicitly denoted as originating from Confucian thought, the Confucian discourses have not appeared as part of the public intellectual concern in the P. R. China before the last two decades of the 20th century. Before that, the very figure of Confucius as such, and the entire Confucian tradition were both subject to severe criticism by the official governmental ideologists. Confucius’ teachings were mostly seen as a reactionary “feudalistic” ideology which mainly served the interests of the exploitative ruling classes of the past society. On the other hand, Confucius was seen – in the light of the tradition of the 4th May cultural renewal and in the light of the Marxist modernization theories – as a symbol of the very conservative tradition that has blocked Chinese modernization and was thus “responsible” for the backwardness of the country. Less than two decades after that, however, such criticism was – completely unexpected for many experts in Chinese studies – turned into its opposite. This “official” turn towards Confucianism manifested itself in the changes of the party’s wording, in the founding of numerous departments and chairs of “national studies” and in the establishment of a network of “Confucian institutes” throughout the world. The lecturer points out that this renewal didn’t remain limited to the declared genres of the highest political summits, for Confucianism was also rediscovered by many intellectuals who hoped to find in it a useful tool for their new evaluations of (traditional) social practices and thus to contribute to the solution of the difficult social and political situation they were facing in contemporary China. Although in official publications that are connected to the spread of the harmonious society idea, Confucius and/or Confucianism are often mentioned as its alleged foundation, the abovementioned connotations – at first glance doesn’t seem to belong to the original Confucian, but rather to the discourses of the Legalist school of thought. To clarify this problem, the Chinese concept of harmony has been illuminated from three different angels, namely through the analysis of official state interpretations, through the analysis of classical Confucian explanations of this concept, as well as through the analysis of its Modern Confucian interpretations. The lecturer concludes that the official interpretation, written by the theoreticians from the P.R. China mainly follows Xunzi’s classical elaboration of this concept which stands in the legalist tradition and implies autocratic elements, whereas Taiwanese Modern Confucian explanations are mainly focused on the Mencian (i.e. more egalitarian) stream of classical Confucian thought.
B.05 Guest lecturer at an institute/university
COBISS.SI-ID: 50678370Jana Rošker and Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik were the editors of the scientific monograph which includes the most relevant contributions of the 1st International STCS (Specific Topics in Chinese Studies) Conference in Ljubljana (July 3th – 6th). It was published by the prominent international publishing house Cambridge Scholars Publishing and included the most relevant contributions of the above mentioned conference. The STCS association was founded in 2010 by Jana Rošker in her function of the leader of the program group. Since the foundation of this association, the international STCS conferences have been organized every second year. The first conference was focused upon cultural and civilizational achievements in China during the important, though insufficiently explored transitional period in Chinese history, namely in the era of Wei Jin and Nanbei Dynasties (3rd century). Besides her own contribution, entitled “The Theoretical Shift in the Wei Jin Period and the Birth of the Structural Semantic (Ming Li)”, [COBISS.SIID 45625698], Jana Rošker also wrote the Introduction to the anthology [COBISS.SIID 45556322] in which she pointed out that it is dedicated to the Wei Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties (220–589 AD), which is generally regarded as one of the most fascinating phases in Chinese history. She exposed the fact that in recent years, scholars in Chinese studies have paid increasing attention to various developmental patterns and their causes during this transitional period. While this book is primarily of interest to students and specialists in Sinology, she is convinced that it will also attract a wider academic readership, especially in the area of intercultural and/or comparative research on various cultural, methodological and theoretical issues, as well as general problems in historiography, ideology and politics. Her aim in compiling this anthology was threefold: to highlight the significance of transition in the making of Chinese culture and history, revise prevailing historical approaches in the study and research of China and develop and enhance existing theories and investigative methodologies in this specific area of research. The focus of the studies gathered in the book is upon the interaction of ideas, researches and perspectives concerning a wide range of relevant and significant issues in contemporary sinology. It follows the presumption, according to which the interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work is the only credible way forward in the rapidly changing panorama of sinological research and the belief that the comprehension, analysis and transmission of reality based on diversely structured sociopolitical, cultural and philosophical contexts as a categorical and essential precondition to such research provides the surest path for enriching our knowledge and understanding in this field.
C.01 Editorial board of a foreign/international collection of papers/book
COBISS.SI-ID: 455563221. European Association for Asian Art and Archeology (EAAAA) Website: http://www.ea-aaa.eu/ 2. European Association for Chinese Philosophy (EACP) (Because the EACP has been officially founded on February 13th 2014, the website of the association is still under construction.) Central aims of both associations: • Encouraging and advancing all academic and scholarly activities related to Asian Art or archaeology and Chinese philosophy respectively in all countries of Europe; • Creating and maintaining a platform for a fruitful exchange of ideas; • Opening a dialogue between scholars of Asian art history and Chinese philosophy respectively; • Offering a platform for the presentation and discussion of recent research. Main activities: • Organization of regular biennial conferences; • Organization of seminars, thematic conferences, workshops, symposia, study events, lectures; • Different ways of supporting graduate students and young scholars; • Publication and exhibition projects; • Promoting contacts and cooperation between scholars and students conducting research in and teaching Asian art or archaeology and Chinese philosophy respectively; • Facilitating cooperation with other organizations having similar aims; • Dissemination of information and resources related to Asian art or Chinese philosophy. Founder, President and Board members: 1. EAAAA: Founder and president: Nataša Vampelj Suhadolnik, Department of Asian and African Studies, Faculty of Arts, University in Ljubljana, Slovenia Board members: Celli, Nicoletta, Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna, Italy Frick, Patricia, Museum for Lacquer Art, Münster, Germany Fukuoka, Maki, School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, University of Leeds, UK Hegewald, Julia A. B.. Institute of Oriental and Asian Studies (IOA), Department of Asian and Islamic Art History, University of Bonn, Germany Kieser, Annette, Institute of Sinology and East Asian Studies, Westfaelische Wilhelms-University, Münster, Germany Lopes, Rui Oliveira, Artistic Studies Research Centre, Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, Portugal Müller, Shing, Institut for Sinology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany Olivova, Lucie, Department of Asian Studies, Philosophical Faculty, Palacky University, Czech Republic Prvan, Mia Dora, Department of Asian and Islamic Art History, University of Bonn, Germany Thomsen, Hans Bjarne, Section for East Asian Art, Institute of Art History, University of Zurich, Switzerland Trede, Melanie, Institute of East Asian Art History, Heidelberg University, Switzerland Voytishek, Elena, Department of Oriental Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Novosibirsk State University, Russia 1. EACP: Founder and president: Jana Rošker, Department of Asian and African Studies, Faculty of Arts, University in Ljubljana, Slovenia Board members: Benicka, Jana, Department of East Asian Studies, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic Buljan, Ivana, Department of Indology and Far Eastern Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Zagreb University, Croatia Cheng, Anne, Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). Collège de France, Paris, France Defoort, Carine, Department of Sinology, Faculty of Arts, University KU Leuven, Netherlands Dessein, Bart, Centre for Buddhist Studies, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Du, Lun, Institute for Chinese Politics and Society, Faculty for Social Sciences, Duisburg University, Essen, Germany Motoh, Helena, Scientific Research Center at the University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia Poskaite, Loreta, Centre of Oriental Studies, Vilnius University, Lithuania Sernelj, Tea, Department of Asian and African studies, Faculty of Arts, University in Ljubljana, Slovenia Sigurðsson, Geir, Icelandic Centre for Asian Studies, University of Iceland, Rejkyavik, Iceland Soffel, Christian, Department of Sinology, Trier University, Germany Vrhovski, Jan, Department of Chinese studies
D.02 Establishment of a research centre, laboratory, study course, association
The program group members have organized the International Conference on Teaching Japanese and Japanese Research in Southeast Europe and Western Balkan (2009): the conference was held on September 16-17, 2009, with the purpose of intensifying cooperation in the field of Japanese Studies and teaching of Japanese in the whole region. The international response was good, with seven universities from the region and two from Japan (The University of Tokyo, Waseda University) participating. As the result, the second conference was already held on March 3, 2010, in Tokyo. The conference was organized by members of the program group (chief organizer Andrej Bekeš, (who also gave one of the invited plenary lectures) at the Department of Asian and African Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, and was funded by Japan foundation (8000 EUR).
B.01 Organiser of a scientific meeting
COBISS.SI-ID: 42094178