Chinese Studies

Dr. Sebastian Demuth 鄧愛森

Associate Researcher, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tübingen

Academic Career

  • 2023- Teacher for Chinese, History, and Politics at the Ev. Gymnasium Doberlug-Kirchhain, Brandenburg
  • 2023 Ph.D. Dissertation (summa cum laude) “The Making of ‘China’ Through History: Li Zhi (1527-1602) and the Shigang pingyao in the Context of Late Ming Historiography” 
  • 2019-20 Interim Managing Director at the European Centre for Chinese Studies (ECCS), Peking
  • 2018 Scholarship Student of the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
  • 2017- 18 Lecturer, Department of Chinese and Korean Studies, University of Tübingen
  • 2016-17 ERC-Scholarship Student and Lecturer, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
  • 2014-15 Lecturer, Department of Chinese and Korean Studies, University of Tübingen
  • 2014 Interim Managing Director at the European Centre for Chinese Studies (ECCS), Peking
  • 2013 MA in Sinology/Chinese Studies and Lecturer, University of Tübingen
  • 2011-12 Research Assistant in the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 923), University of Tübingen
  • 2010-11 Study Abroad at Fudan University, Shanghai
  • 2009 BA in Sinology/Chinese Studies and Prehistory, Early History and Medieval Archaeology, University of Tübingen

Research Focus

In his master’s thesis, Sebastian Demuth investigated the development of cartography in imperial China and analysed the Waiyi 外夷 (foreign peoples) chapters in Cheng Bai’er’s 程百二 (ca. 16th-17th cent.) late Ming geographical compilation Fangyu shenglüe 方輿勝略 (Compendium of the Geographical Features of the World; 1610). In his doctoral thesis with the title “The Making of a ‘China’ Through History: Li Zhi 李贄 (1527-1602) and the Shigang pingyao 史綱評要 (1613) in the Context of Late Ming Historiography”, he examined the life of the philosopher Li Zhi and his allegedly authored world chronicle Shigang pingyao (Critical Annotation of the Essentials of the Outline of History, 1613) against the backdrop of the Ming historiographical developments. In addition to that, Sebastian Demuth is collaborating in Prof. Hans Ulrich Vogel’s translation project "Translating Western Science, Technology and Medicine to Late Ming China: Convergences and Divergences in the Light of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致 (Investigations of the Earth’s Interior, 1640) and Taixi shuifa 泰西水法 (Hydromethods of the Great West, 1612)." Furthermore, he is currently preparing an article, in which he reconstructs and contextualizes his great-grandfather’s activities in the East Asian Expeditionary Corps during the Boxer Uprising 1900/1901 based on a field post letter and two postcards.

Other Activities

Sebastian Demuth is currently working on various publications. Among other writings, he prepares entries on the terms gonglun 公論 (public discourse), xiushen 修身 (self-cultivation), and tianming 天命 (Mandate of Heaven) for a book project on core concepts in historical thinking. Furthermore, he prepares an article, in which he reconstructs and contextualizes his great-grandfather’s activities in the East Asian Expeditionary Corps during the Boxer Uprising 1900/1901 on the basis of a field post letter and two postcards. Moreover, he translates the late Qing dynasty science fiction novel "Tales of the Moon Colony" (Yueqiu zhimindi xiaoshuo 月球殖民地小說; 1904) von Huangjiang Diaosou 荒江釣叟 ("Old Fisherman of the Secluded River").