Rudolf G. Wagner

Rudolf G. Wagner ( born November 3, 1941 in Wiesbaden ) is a German sinologist and professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg.

Life

Between 1962 and 1969 Wagner studied Sinology, Japanese studies, political science and philosophy in Bonn, Heidelberg, Paris and Munich. As a Harkness Fellow of the Commonwealth Fund Wagner worked after one year at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley until 1972, he found himself again at the Free University of Berlin, where he became an assistant professor of Chinese Studies. In Berlin also work in communist circles and organizations of the KPD / AO or author in the journal "liberation " in which he also defended, among others, the Pol Pot regime.

Wagner earned his doctorate at the University of Munich as a doctor of philosophy in 1974. The topic of his dissertation was "The questions Shih Hui -yuan 's on Kumarajiva ". From 1978 he worked as a lecturer at the East Asian Chinese Studies Seminar of the University of Berlin and was also a science journalist for German -language radio stations. His habilitation in the German capital took place in 1981 with the study " philology, philosophy, and politics during the Zhengshi era". In the coming years, Wagner has worked in various kinds of institutions at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University (1981-1982), a lecturer at the Free University of Berlin (1982-1983), a visiting professor at the John K. Fairbank Center for East Asian research at Harvard ( January-June 1984) and as a language researcher at the Center for Chinese Studies at Berkeley ( 1984-1986 ).

In 1987 he was appointed Professor of Chinese Studies at the Ruprecht -Karls- University of Heidelberg, which he still enjoys today. In 1989, he worked in China at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, then took but a year later for a short time his visiting professorship at Harvard University back on.

Wagner is married to Catherine Vance Yeh and has two daughters.

Work

Wagner's research mainly deal with the Chinese cultural history. His major works include the three-volume study of the writings of the philosopher Wang Bi, which was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation with an Academy Fellowship:

• The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi (2000)
• Language, Ontology, and Political Philosophy: Wang Bi 's Scholarly Exploration of the Dark ( Xuanxue ) (2003 )
• A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing: Wang Bi 's commentary on the Laozi with critical text and translation (2003)

Other topics of his scientific work have included the Taiping Rebellion, the Shanghai Daily newspaper Shenbao and Chinese literature ( prose and historical drama ) and its links with politics.

The far beyond the German borders reaching significance Wagner is particularly the fact that he and August 1996, the Office of the Secretary-General and from September 1996 to September 1998 had the President of the European Association of Chinese Studies from September 1992. In addition, he was named the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in 1996 to associate professor.

For his researches Wagner received in 1993 the highly doped Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize.