Dr Johannes Lotze

This online talk has a twofold purpose. First, it will provide an overall introduction to the Chinese items of the John Rylands Library (JRL) and the Manchester Digital Collections (MDC). It marks the launch of the exhibition “Qing: China’s Multilingual Empire” at the JRL (curated by Johannes Lotze and Julianne Simpson) which explores the internal diversity and global connectedness of the Qing empire (1636-1912).

Second, the talk uses this introduction as a springboard to a topic that can be summarised as “Multilingual China”: the significance of diverse languages and scripts in the medieval and early modern sinophone sphere. The focus will be on specific JRL items that illustrate the role of multilingualism, translation, and language learning in imperial China (and especially the Qing as its final incarnation), such as bilingual glossaries, multilingual inscriptions, and depictions of everyday life.