At the sixth session of the Entangled Histories seminar series, Assoc. Prof. Sophie Ling-chia Wei explored how Jesuit Figurists brought Christianity into dialogue with Chinese intellectual traditions. The event was held with public participation.
The sixth session of the seminar series titled Entangled Histories: Borders and Cultural Encounters from the Medieval to the Contemporary Era was jointly organized by Üsküdar University Faculty of Communication (Department of Journalism) faculty member Asst. Prof. Maria Pia Ester Cristaldi and Elisa Ramazzina from University of Insubria. The session featured Assoc. Prof. Sophie Ling-chia Wei from The Chinese University of Hong Kong as the guest speaker.
In her presentation, Assoc. Prof. Wei examined how French Jesuit Figurists active in Early Qing China reinterpreted Christian theology through classical Chinese texts from an interdisciplinary perspective. The seminar offered an in-depth discussion of the Figurists’ efforts to reinterpret Jesus within the Chinese intellectual tradition, addressing historical, cultural, and philological dimensions.
Assoc. Prof. Wei explained that Jesuit Figurists such as Joachim Bouvet, Jean-François Foucquet, and Joseph Henri-Marie de Prémare sought to portray Jesus as a wise figure adorned with dragons and hexagrams. Drawing on Chinese classics such as the Yijing (I Ching) and the concept of Dao (道), they aimed to embed Christian figures within Chinese philosophical symbolism. Assoc. Prof. Wei emphasized that these efforts went beyond translation activities and should be understood as symbolic initiatives through which religious thought was reconstituted via intercultural interaction.
The seminar provided a distinctive academic platform at the intersection of history, theology, and translation studies.
The Entangled Histories seminar series, held online and open to the public, will continue to host scholars from various disciplines through the summer months.