Lecture: “The Rites Controversy: Carlo Tommaso Maillard de Tournon in China”

The Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao S.A.R. Government will organize a Research Grant Lecture in the Cultural Affairs Bureau Auditorium (Edifício do Instituto Cultural, Tap Seac Square, Macao) at 6:30pm on November 29 (Tuesday). Dr. Han Qi will give a lecture on “The Rites Controversy: Carlo Tommaso Maillard de Tournon in China”.
This lecture will analyze Maillard de Tournon’s stay in China, the activities of Emperor Kangxi and those of the missionaries and their followers according to recently discovered Chinese and western documents. Dr. Han will look at their understanding of the Controversy, and throw light on the complex backdrop to this event.
Han Qi is a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute for the History of Natural Sciences and also serves as an advisor for the Academy’s Ph.D. programme. His research mainly covers Chinese and western science and cultural exchange in the Qing Dynasty. Han Qi has been invited to visit America, Japan, France, England, Germany, Portugal and Italy. Throughout his research in European libraries and archives he has amassed a vast amount of documents relating to exchange between China and the West during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Han has published extensively in his field and is a member of several academic centres such as the Centre for the Study of Religion and Chinese Society at Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Ricci Institute for Chinese-Western Cultural History at the University of San Francisco, the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and leads the project team formulating the science section of the national compilation of Qing Dynasty history (2005-2009). This research topic was awarded a grant in the 12th Research Scholarship Competition of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Macao S.A.R. Government. The lecture will be given in Mandarin with Cantonese, Portuguese and English simultaneous interpretation. Entrance is free. For further details, please contact Ms. Chu of the Studies, Research and Publications Division of the Cultural Affairs Bureau at 3996381, or visit the Cultural Affairs Bureau’s website: www.icm.gov.mo.