China – Norms, Ideas, Practices
中国 – 规范、理念、实践
Research Project
Translations for Dialogue
翻译对话
Practicing legal history in a global perspective also means learning from and about each other.
When in contact with Chinese culture, it becomes obvious that there is a profound knowledge of Western legal thinking and legal traditions in China. In contrast, our own knowledge about China is rather limited. One of the reasons for this is the existence of a long and abundant tradition of translating contemporary German authors and their works into Chinese. By comparison, intellectual debates about Chinese legal traditions and China's self-conception are hardly noticed in Germany. This has been particularly evident in the emergence of the Chinese legal system. The invocation of China's own legal traditions however is of great importance also for contemporary Chinese politics – at the latest since the dawn of a New Era of the Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.
In cooperation with the Max Weber Foundation and Werner Reimers Foundation, the translation project ‘China – Norms, Ideas, Practices’ has already commenced. Given the context outlined above, the project aims to translate a selection of texts authored by contemporary Chinese scholars into German and publish them with introductory remarks. The focus will be on texts written by Chinese intellectuals who represent important voices in current academic debates. These texts will address major questions of law and politics in China from a primarily historical perspective. In general, the translation project aims to provide new ways of looking at the broad spectrum between official statements and critical voices, especially echoing from the West. Only in this way can an appropriate understanding of traditions of self-interpretation be developed, which in the end are vital to any political community. In light of its rapid economic growth and transformation, this certainly applies to China. Regarding the individual translation projects, introductory remarks may serve German readers to situate the texts into their appropriate contexts.
For the first three translation projects the monographs listed below have been chosen:
Teaser-Image: CC-BY-SA by 三猎