Research Program Coordinator, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin

Academic Career

• 2023-present Research Program Coordinator, Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin
• 2020-2023 PhD Scholarship of the Gerda Henkel Foundation
• 2016-2020 Lecturer, Department of Chinese Studies, University of Tübingen
• June-August 2018 Doctoral Research Fellowship at the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History, San Francisco, CA
• 2016 MA Sinology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Tübingen
• March-July 2016 PROMOS Research Scholarship at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge, UK
• 2012 BA Chinese Studies, Faculty of Humanities, Free University of Berlin

The «Jiuchongtian tu» 九重天圖 (Illustration of the Nine-layer Heavens) as seen on Matteo Ricci’s «Kunyu wanguo quantu» 坤輿萬國全圖 (A Map of the Myriad Countries of the World) published c. 1602, displayed in Huang Shijian 黄时鑒 (2004): «Li Madou shijie ditu yanjiu» 利瑪竇世界地圖研究 (Studies on Matteo Ricci’s World Map), Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, image 19.

Research Focus
In her thesis, Anna Strob examines the transmission of Aristotelian natural philosophy to China through the works of Jesuit missionaries in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Focusing on the Kongji gezhi 空際格致 (Investigation into Phenomena in the Atmosphere, c. 1633), written by the Jesuit missionary Alfonso Vagnone, she explores how Renaissance science and philosophy were adapted to Chinese intellectual traditions. Vagnone’s translation of Aristotle’s cosmology, particularly the four-element theory and the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic geocentric worldview, offers a compelling example of this cultural exchange. Strob’s research highlights the complexities of translating Western scientific concepts into Chinese thought, showing how these ideas were not simply imported but recontextualized during a crucial period of early globalization. Her doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof. Dr. Hans Ulrich Vogel and Prof. Achim Mittag, was generously funded by a PhD scholarship of the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Her doctoral research is part of the international 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)” at the University of Tübingen.

Publications
As a result of her lecture at the 27th Agricola Colloquium: “Kunyu gezhi or the History of the Chinese Translation of De re metallica” organized by the Agricola Research Center Chemnitz in November 2018, Anna Strob published the article “Aristoteles im Gewand des Konfuzius: Alfonso Vagnone’s Kongji gezhi 空際格致 (Eine Studie Himmlischer Phänomene, c. 1633),” 27. Rundbrief: Agricola-Forschungszentrum Chemnitz, 2019, pp. 8-24.
Strob, Anna (forthcoming): “An Investigation into the Material Composition of the World: Alfonso Vagnone’s Kongji gezhi,” in The Elusive Substrate: Prime Matter and Hylomorphism from Ancient Rome to Early Qing China by Nicola Poloni (ed.), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
 

The «Sixingqing tu» 四行情圖 (Drawing of the Properties of the Four Elements) taken from Alfonso Vagnone’s «Kongji gezhi» 空際格致 (Investigation into Celestial Phenomena, c. 1633), woodblock print, accessed online: World Digital Library/Library of Congress.