Dirk Meyer
Position:
Professor of Chinese Philosophy; Fellow of The Queen's College.
Director of the Centre for Manuscript and Text Cultures (CMTC).
Director of the Centre for Study of Excavated Manuscripts (出土文獻研究中心), Nanjing University.
Faculty / College Address:
China Centre / The Queen's College
Reserach Interests:
I work on Chinese Philosophy with special focus on close philological analysis. My research explores argumentative strategies in early Chinese thought production and the interplay of material conditions and ideas. By studying the impact media change has on the systematisation of thinking, I engage with genre and argument construction in philosophical discourse, manuscript and text cultures, and transition periods in philosophy. As a historian of Chinese thought my goal is to conceptualise Chinese thinking on its own terms.
| 2012 - present | Associate Professor of Chinese Philosophy, Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. |
| 2007 - 2012 | Career Development Fellow (CDF) in Chinese Philosophy, Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. |
| 2004 - 2007 |
PhD in Sinology, Leiden University Title: “Meaning-construction in Warring-States Philosophical Discourse: A Discussion of the Paleographic Materials from Tomb Guodian One”. |
| 2002 - 2003 | MA in Chinese Studies, Leiden University |
| 2000 - 2002 | Heidelberg University (Departments of Philosophy and Chinese Studies) |
| 1997 - 2000 | National Taiwan University (NTU), Taipei (Department of Classical Chinese Philology 中文系) |
Books
| Forthcoming 2021 | Documentation and Argument in Early China: The Shàngshū 尚書 (Venerated Documents) and the “Shū” Traditions. Berlin: De Gruyter. |
| 2017 | Origins of Chinese Political Philosophy: Studies in the Composition and Thought of the Classic of Documents, eds Martin Kern and Dirk Meyer. HCT 8. Leiden: Brill |
| 2016 | Paperback edition Literary Forms of Argument |
| 2015 | Literary Forms of Argument in Early China, eds Joachim Gentz and Dirk Meyer. SinL 123. Leiden: Brill |
| 2011 | Philosophy on Bamboo: Text and the Production of Meaning in Early China. HCT 2. Leiden: Brill |
Articles
| 2019 | “Shu 書 (Documents) Repertoire in Argument-Based Texts from Guodian: The Case of Cheng zhi 成之 (Things Brought to Completion)”. In: Dao Companion to the Excavated Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts, ed. Shirley Chan, 139–167. Cham: Springer. |
| 2018 | “Patterning Meaning: A Thick Description of the Qinghua Manuscript ‘*Tang zai Chi/Di men’ (Tang was at the Chi/Di Gate) and what it tells us about Thought Production in Early China”. Bulletin of the Jao Tsung-I Academy of Sinology (BJAS): 139–167. |
| 2017 | “Recontextualization and Memory Production: Debates on Rulership as Reconstructed from "Gu ming" 顧命 (Testimonial Charge)”. In: Origins of Chinese Political Philosophy, eds Martin Kern and Dirk Meyer, 106-145. Leiden: Brill. |
| 2017 | “‘Shu’ Traditions and Text Recomposition: A Re-evaluation of ‘Jin teng’ and ‘Zhou Wuwang you ji’”. In: Origins of Chinese Political Philosophy, eds Martin Kern and Dirk Meyer, 224-248. Leiden: Brill. |
| 2015 | “Truth Claims with no Claim to Truth: Text and Performance of the ‘Quishui’ Chapter of the Zhuangzi”. In: Literary Forms of Argument in Early China, eds Joachim Gentz and Dirk Meyer, 297-340. Leiden: Brill. |
| 2015 | “Introduction” (with Joachim Gentz). In: Literary Forms of Argument in Early China, eds Joachim Gentz and Dirk Meyer, 1-36. Leiden: Brill. |
| 2014 | “The Art of Narrative and the Rhetoric of Persuasion in the ‘*Jinteng’ (Metal Bound Casket) from the Tsinghua Collection of Manuscripts”. Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 68.4 (2014): 937–968 |
| 2014 | “Bamboo and the Production of Philosophy: A Hypothesis about a Shift in Writing and Thought in Early China”. In: History and Material Culture in Asian Religions, eds Benjamin J. Fleming and Richard Mann, 21-38. London: Routledge. |
| 2009 | “Texts, Textual Communities, and Meaning: The Genius Loci of the Warring States Chu Tomb Guodian One” Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques 63/4 (2009), 827-856. |
| 2008 | “Writing Meaning: Strategies of Meaning-construction in Early Chinese Philosophical Discourse.” Monumenta Serica 56 (2008), 55-95. |
| 2008 | 'Meaning-Construction in Warring States Philosophical Discourse: A Discussion of the Palaeographic Materials from Tomb Guodian One'. PhD thesis. Leiden: CNWS, 2008. |
| 2007 | “Structure as a Means of Persuasion as seen in the Manuscript Qiong da yi shi 窮達以時 from Tomb One, Guodian.” Oriens Extremus 45 (2005/06) [2007], 173-210. |
| 2006 | “A Device for Conveying Meaning: the Structure of the Guodian Tomb One manuscript “Zhong xin zhi dao.” In Komposition und Konnotation—Figuren der Kunstprosa im Alten China, eds Wolfgang Behr and Joachim Gentz, 57-78. Bochumer Jahrbuch 29 (2005) [2006]. |
I work on Chinese Philosophy with a special focus on close philological analysis. My research explores argumentative strategies in early Chinese thought production and the interplay of material conditions and ideas. By analysing the impact of socio-material forces on textual practices in Chinese writings, I develop a philological philosophy that foregrounds the material basis of systematic thinking.
