OPGDI In-Conversation Series

This fiercest public health crisis in a century has elicited cooperative courage and sacrifice across the globe. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic is intensifying social, economic, political, and ethical divides, within and between nations. It is reshaping how we engage with each other and how we see the world around us. It urges us to think more deeply on many challenging issues – some of which can perhaps be transformed into opportunities for building a better future if we handle them well.

In this series, OPGDI presents four conversations, each partnering academic speakers and audiences from the UK and China. Join us in the cross-cultural transmission of these infectious ideas.

CONVERSATION 4:

Cultural Exchange Inherited from Times of Uncertainty

Professor Qi Xuemin (Tsinghua University) in conversation with Dr Mamtimyn Sunuodula (Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University)

Hosts: Dr Myra Blyth (Oxford University) and Ms. Emily Burgoyne (Angus Library, Oxford University)

Registered attendees will receive a Zoom link shortly before the event.

Professor Qi received his PhD at Tsinghua University. Currently he is Professor of the Department of History, and Dean of Degree at the School of Humanities at Tsinghua University. Professor Qi is an expert in the history of Qing Dynasty and Republican China. His research interest is the making of modern China, focusing on the fate of Chinese classical learnings in modern times and the formation of modern discipline in China. He is the Prize-winner of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation in 2005 and has published two books : Yanfu “Zhengzhi jiangyi” yanjiu [A Study of Yanfu’s Lectures on Politics] (2014) and Ruanyuan “Rulin zhuangao” yanjiu [A Study of Ruan Yuan’s Draft History of Collected Biographies of Confucians] (2011). A forthcoming book is "To Investigate Origin of Academic Learnings of Qing Dynasty". He has also published more than 30 articles in influential academic journals.

Dr Mamtimyn Sunuodula is Head of East Asia and HD Chung Chinese Studies Librarian, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. He has strategic oversight for developing the Bodleian Libraries’ resources and services in Chinese, Japanese and Korean Studies and curatorial responsibility for Bodleian’s Chinese rare books and special collections. Dr Sunuodula has published widely on the role of language as a social practice in negotiating ethnic and social identities and its effect on the wider social relations of power in the context of multilingual China.

Dr Myra Blyth is a Tutorial Fellow in Theology and Ecumenical Studies at Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford. Her research explores the interface between theology and society, with specific attention to Restorative Justice. Between 2016 and 2019, with colleagues in Oxford, Sheffield and Ulster, she led an ethnographic research project on the place of forgiveness within Restorative Justice, and she is currently developing plans for a UK-China symposium in 2021 on Restorative Justice philosophy and practice.

Ms Emily Burgoyne, Emily is the Librarian of Angus Library & Archive. Angus is the leading collection worldwide for Baptist history and heritage. The Angus holds the papers of many leading Baptist figures from the 18th century to the present day, such as, C. H. Spurgeon, Joseph Angus and E. A. Payne.  It also holds photographs, minutes, correspondence and other documents covering mission fields such as China, India, Congo and the West Indies from 1792 onwards when the BMS was formed.