AUUUUDITORIUM JUNE | Paradigm Shifts in Late Qing China: The Cases of Seismology and Epidemiology

Setting the stage for the collective learning programs at the AUUUUDITORIUM of the Rockbund Art Museum, Ming Wong’s installation Scenography for a Shanghai Science Fiction Opera (2024) unveils an alternative speculative fiction that is retraceable in indigenous knowledge. In resonance with Wong's scenography, Project New Small Talk presents a series of lectures and workshops around early Chinese science fiction literature.
If science fiction is to imply a response to scientific knowledge, research into its history requires the epistemological context provided by studies of scientific history. This lecture revolves around the history of science in the late Qing Dynasty, initially exploring the spread of Western science during this period and its assimilation by Chinese intellectuals and the broader populace. The discussion then turns to seismology and epidemiology, illustrating the adaptation of traditional Chinese cosmology with scientific ideas introduced from the Christian West. A synthetic and eclectic understanding of the universe emerged, shedding the dependency upon the divine found in both cultures' religions. With the change of view on Tian (cosmos, heaven), disenchanted doctrines of Di (earth) and Ren (human) were developed.
Lecturer: Zhang Hongbin is an Associate Professor at the School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University. His research focuses on the intellectual and cultural history of modern China. He is the author of Disenchantment: Heaven-Mankind Interaction, Modern Science and the Transmutation of Cosmology in the Late Qing Dynasty (2021).
作为开展上海外滩美术馆项目“讲---堂”共同学习项目的舞台，艺术家黄汉明的装置作品《上海科幻戏曲的舞台布景设计》（2024）呈现了一种可以在本土知识体系中追溯的另类未来虚构。
如果说科幻创作意味着对特定科学知识体系的回应，那么科幻史研究就需要科学史研究提供其认识论语境。本场讲座围绕晚清科学史展开，首先梳理西方近代科学经由何种人群、机构、媒体在晚清中国传播，以及其被晚清知识分子与民众接受的过程。随后，讲者将以地震与疾疫学说为例，考察传统中国宇宙观如何承受基督教西方的科学新知、与之斡旋。一种对世界的综合的、折衷的理解从中诞生，逐渐脱离对东西方宗教中神圣存在的依赖，在“天变”的背景下催化出祛魅的“地”学和“人”学。
讲者：张洪彬，上海师范大学人文学院副教授，研究方向为中国近现代思想文化史。著有《祛魅：天人感应、近代科学与晚清宇宙观念的嬗变》。