Wednesday 7 October, 2:00–3:30pm BST
Room 1.11, Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge

Abstract

Classical studies is often regarded as one of the quintessentially “European” traditions of scholarship. Yet the growing interest in Greek and Roman antiquity in China has puzzled scholars in the field, particularly at a time when classical studies is perceived to be declining elsewhere, especially in North America and Western Europe. What accounts for the vitality of Western classics in China today?

Drawing on my previous research on world and global history in China and on the reception of Greek and Roman antiquity in East Asia, this talk surveys the development of classical studies in China over the past century. I argue that, rather than representing a recent phenomenon, the study of Western classics has long been integral to China’s efforts to construct a new identity amid modernization and globalization. Revisiting the history and current state of classical studies in China therefore enables us to reconsider the cultural dynamics underlying exchanges between East Asia and the West, and to take a second look at the place of Western classics in the globalized world through a case study on China.

Speaker bio

Xin Fan (FRHistS) is Professor of History and Vice Dean of the Institute of Humanities at ShanghaiTech University, as well as a Senior Associate at Lucy Cavendish College. He is the author of World History of National Identity in China: The Twentieth Century (CUP, 2021) and Global History in China (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024). He also co-edited Receptions of Greek and Roman Antiquity in East Asia (Brill, 2018) and SAGE Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History (2026). Prior to Shanghai, he taught at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.