Research Project Collaborator at the Department of Chinese Studies, Tübingen University
Academic Career
- Since 2018 Research Project Collaborator, Tübingen University
- 2016 Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (IHSS) at Peking University
- 2014-2017 Academic Director at the European Centre for Chinese Studies (ECCS), Beijing
- 2012 PhD Chinese Studies at Tübingen University
- 2007 M.A. Ancient Chinese History at Peking University
- 2004 B.A. History and Economy at Peking University
Research Focus
Cao Jin's primary research interests are history of economy, science, and technology in China. Having worked on the management of reed-land aggradation and the copper-salt exchange between Yunnan and Guangdong in Qing China during her B.A. and M.A. phases, she did her doctoral dissertation on the topic of "Mining and Minting in Sichuan Province, Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries." This study took place in the framework of the DFG Research Group “Monies, Markets, and Finance in China and East Asia, 1600-1900.” After completing her PhD studies, Cao Jin investigated metrology and metrosophy in Song China, before she began to become involved with the 2015 surprisingly rediscovered manuscript of the book Kunyu gezhi, a Chinese translation of mainly Georg Agricola's De re metallica from the 17th century. Since 2018 her work is part of the DFG research 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)."
