Ph.D. candidate, Department of Chinese Studies

Academic Career

• 2019-2022 Managing Director at the European Centre for Chinese Studies at Peking University
• 2020-2023 Lecturer, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tuebingen
• Since 2019 Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tuebingen
• 2019 M.A. Historical Research Methods and Japanese, SOAS, University of London
• 2017 B.A. Sinology/Chinese Studies and General Rhetoric, University of Tuebingen

Research Focus
In his master thesis, Christian Buskühl examined British–Japanese maritime trade relations. He focussed on the British attempt in 1813 to replace the exclusively Dutch position in the port of Nagasaki. He argued that the main reason for the mission’s miscarriage was the geopolitical stubbornness of British decision-makers and thus was bound to fail. For his Ph.D. dissertation, he is working on intrigues in the imperial palace at the end of the Ming Dynasty. He examines the so-called “three cases“ (san'an 三案). His focus is on how individual actions, which were considered insignificant at the time they occurred, could develop into historical events that, due to their disruptive character, decisively shaped Chinese history and dynastic historiography. His main sources include various editions from the Ming Veritable Records 明實錄.

In addition, Christian Buskühl is an associated researcher in the international 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 the Taixi shuifa 泰西水法 (Hydromethods of the Great West; 1612)” directed by Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Vogel.