Rudolf G. Wagner presented with funding for E-Journal

The day’s program was scheduled in honor of
Prof. Rudolf G. Wagner and his lifelong commitment to Chinese and Transcultural Studies. Thus, the program included discussions and lectures that covered different areas that have been of interest to Rudolf Wagner during his many years of research.
Looking back over ten years, Barbara Mittler called Rudolf Wagner the “hidden sagely uncrowned king 貓朝玄聖素王” of the recently opened
Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS). The expression is used for Confucius who, while being considered one of the greatest sages of all times, never took on office and never served as a Platonian-type sage ruler to the great detriment of his country.
As one of the founding directors of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context,” Rudolf Wagner brought together a passionate commitment to high quality scholarship with a mission to create an institutional environment where intellectual creativity can flourish. This principle of his has laid the groundwork for the transition of the Cluster into a sustainable Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS).
One significant index of this “transcultural turn” that Rudolf Wagner initiated in the Humanities is the open access journal
The Journal of Transcultural Studies, which has been in existence for ten years. To honor his efforts especially in Taiwan Studies, the Taiwanese writer and cultural critic Lung Ying-tai convinced two philanthropists Barry Lam, the founder of Quanta Computers, and T.H. Tung, the co-founder of Asus, to support the journal with a sum of 100.000 Euro. The sum will be used to extend the assistant editorship position at the HCTS to continue with the e-journal.
This second CATS Open Forum featured an Artists’ Roundtable with Sheba Chhacchi and Yang Jiechang in discussion with an interdisciplinary group of scholars, a Dialogue across Borders with Nicolai Volland (Penn State), a specialist in Chinese and comparative literature and Dorothea Redepenning (Heidelberg), a specialist in musicology with a regional focus on Russia. It also included a second conversational format, a Salon which concluded the day, when Rudolf G. Wagner presented his reading of the Chinese May Fourth Movement.

© Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies, Heidelberg University, Photographer: Susann Henker