A wide range of topics is covered in this collection of four volumes of essays in honor of Rudolf G. Wagner. The expansive time frame from pre-modern to contemporary China in China and the World - the World and China reflect the breadth of his own scholarship. The essays are also testimony to his ability to connect with scholars across the globe, across disciplines and generations.The first volume (Transcultural Perspectives on Pre-modern China) brings together a set of contributions relating to the pre-modern period which reveals thematic clusters that correspond to the three main periods of Chinese pre-modern history. While the first six contributions on the early China period focus on conceptual questions of text interpretation and reconstruction, the following five on medieval China all deal with religious topics whereas the last four contributions, covering the late imperial period, address issues of the entangled relationship between the self and the exterior.The contributions in the second volume (Transcultural Perspectives on Late Imperial China) are linked by a common interest in questions of transculturality, hybridity, contact zones and third spaces. These are concepts and ideas quite central to Rudolf G. Wagner s scholarly oeuvre. Each of the contributions addresses these notions in their own particular manner, sometimes more, sometimes less explicitly. But there is more: the authors in this volume also share an interest in the hidden, the unsaid, the unknown - forgotten people and objects become main protagonists. In addition, the importance of translation as a cultural practice and new perceptions and understandings of the role of translation in Late Qing cross-and transcultural interactions and the significant impact of particular actor networks involved in these translations emerge as two more common questions addressed throughout this volume.The studies in the third volume (Transcultural Perspectives on Modern China) span a long twentieth century of cultural production in China. All of them, each in a different manner, deal with one crucially important set of questions, one that has been very much at the heart of Rudolf G. Wagner s work: questions of readership and reception, and, related to this, of persuasion, legitimation and trust: how does one successfully draw an audience in China; how does one convince; what is an effective rhetorics or argumentation?The fourth and last volume (Transcultural Perspectives on Global China) is testimony to the imprint Rudolf G. Wagner has made beyond many borders, with contributions from Indology to Egyptology and Theology, from world history, to world literature, to Esperanto as a world language, and talking about travelling concepts and objects such as tea, comics, and knowledge. This volume also contains a number of reminiscences about Rudolf G. Wagner, the border-crosser: his radical bonmots, his role as great master-teacher for people from many different walks of life, in short, his expansiveness, ⦠and more.Contents Volume 1: Transcultural Perspectives on Pre-modern China Foreword: The Joys of Transculturality - or Research and Teaching between China and the World: A Tribute to Rudolf G. Wagnerããã(Monica JUNEJA and Barbara MITTLER) Editor s Introductionããã(Joachim GENTZ) Zhuangzi s Twinkle and Methods without Truthããã(Joachim GENTZ)) Materialität antiker Handschriften: Beispiele aus Chinaããã(Enno GIELE) Concepts of Authenticity and the Chinese Textual Heritage in Light of Excavated Textsããã(Anke HEIN) Biographical Genres and Biography: The Case of Yan Zun å´éµããã(CHEN Zhi) The Rule of Law in Eastern Han China: Some Cases of Murder, Suicide, Theft, and Private Disputeããã(Robin D. S. YATES) Zhao Qi è¶å² and Late Han Pedantic Conceptual Analysisããã(Christoph HARBSMEIER) Antlers? Or Horns? Towards Understanding Gan Bao 干寶, the Historianããã(Michael SCHIMMELPFENNIG) KumÄrajÄ«va s Voice ?ããã(Michael RADICH) Transcending Boundaries: Afterlife Conceptions in Entombed Epitaphs and Votive Steles of the Six Dynasties Periodããã(Friederike ASSANDRI) Motifs Traveled with Intentions: Mapping Tang China and the World through Pictorial Screens in the Nara Period Japan (710-794)ããã(WANG Yizhou) Studying Fears of Witchcraft in Traditional China: A Close Reading of Three Examples from Hong Mai s The Records of a Listenerããã(Barend TER HAAR) Chi ç¡, pi ç, shi å, hao 好: Genealogies of Obsession in Chinese Literatureããã(LI Wai-yee) Entangled Histories: Insights Gained from a Hodological Approach to the Blue Beryl s Thanka on Metaphors of the Bodyããã(Elisabeth HSU) Manchu Sources and the Problem of Translationããã(Mark ELLIOTT) Kalmyk Echoes, Torghut Returns: Poet-Exiles in a Time of Shrinking Frontiersããã(Haun SAUSSY) Volume 2: Transcultural Perspectives on Late Imperial China Editors Introductionããã(Natascha GENTZ and Catherine YEH) Kim ChÅng-hÅi éæ£å (1786-1856): A Late ChosÅn Korean Yangban å©ç in Qing Chinaããã(Benjamin A. ELMAN) Early Protestant Historiography and the Travel of Some European National Characters to China:Karl F. A. Gützlaff s Gujin wanguo gangjian å¤ä»è¬å綱é (1838)ããã(Federica CASALIN) Para/Texts and the Construction of Life Histories in Women s Literary Collections in Late Imperial China:The Case of Chen Yunlian é³èè® (ca. 1800-ca. 1860)ããã(Grace S. FONG) Shanghai as Entertainment: The Cultural Construction and Marketing of Leisure, 1850-1910ããã(Catherine Vance YEH) ä»æå§å°æ¼è¯´--ææ¸ç»æ¥ä¸ç声é³ããã(CHEN Pingyuan éå¹³å) è¦è¦ºå¥è§èæ¬åå°ç--ãé»ç³é½ç«å ±ãç·¬ç¸ç空éæ¿æ²»èæåæäºããã(CHENG Wen-huei éææ ) The Pitfalls of Transnational Distinction: A Royal Exchange of Honors and Contested Sovereignty in Late Qing Chinaããã(Elisabeth KASKE) Medical Translation in Canton, 1850-1918ããã(Ellen WIDMER) Kant in China: Eine philosophische Wahlverwandtschaftããã(Joachim KURTZ) Ying Lianzhi: A Journalist Misfit Negotiating the Founding of the Tianjin Dagongbaoããã(Natascha GENTZ) Shandong, the Yellow River, the Local and the Globalããã(Iwo AMELUNG) å¾è¯å¤·ä¹ã辨ãå°è¯å¤·ä¹ãè®ã--è¯èªèªç³»ç 究åæèããã(David WANG çå¾·å¨) Volume 3: Transcultural Perspectives on Modern China Editors Introductionããã(Barbara MITTLER and Natascha GENTZ) Is There a Common Reader in This Text? Understandings of Cholera in Daily-Use Compendiaããã(Joan JUDGE) Useful New Knowledge for Everyone to Digest? Transcultural Remakings of the Encyclopedicin the Encyclopedic Dictionary of New Knowledge (Xin wenhua cishu æ°æåè¾æ¸, Shanghai 1923)ããã(Barbara MITTLER) Xin wenhua cishu (An Encyclopedic Dictionary of New Knowledge): An Exploratory Readingããã(Leo Ou-fan LEE) Betting on a Cardinal Virtue: Transcultural Formations in Shanghai Financeããã(Bryna GOODMAN) Cultural Imperialism Redux? Reassessing the Christian Colleges of Republican Chinaããã(Elizabeth J. PERRY and Hang TU) The Emergence of the Modern Civil Engineer in China, 1900-1940ããã(Pierre-Étienne WILL) Steaming Toward the Future: Cao Ming, Locomotive, and Transcultural Socialismããã(Nicolai VOLLAND) Waiguo Qiaomin: A Few Comments on the CCP s Policy Toward Foreigners in the Late 1940sããã(Flavia SOLIERI) The South China Sea and how It Turned into Historically Chinese Territory in 1975ããã(Johannes L. KURZ) Beijing Water 1908-2008: The Development of China s Capital as Seen through the Lens of Its Most Elusive Resourceããã(Thomas HAHN) Xi Jinping and the Art of Chrono-Ideological Engineeringããã(Heike HOLBIG) Innovationsrhetorik chinesischer Prägung: Eine Analyse der Rede Xi Jinpings vom 9. Juni 2014vor der Chinesischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Pekingããã(Christian SCHWERMANN) Volume 4: Transcultural Perspectives on Global China Editors Introductionããã(Barbara MITTLER and Catherine YEH) æ¯äº«åãè¿æ¯å¿å å½¢åå½±åª - æ¯è¾è§éä¸ç å¤ç¬ é®é¢ããã(LIU Dong åä¸) The Quest for Chinese Teaããã(Dietmar ROTHERMUND) Einige Gedanken zu Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft in China und dem Westenããã(Helwig SCHMIDT-GLINTZER) China in Global Context: An Alternative Perspective on World Historyããã(Paul A. COHEN) Why is Esperanto so Popular in Japan? The Case of Shimada Kenjiããã(Joshua FOGEL) Another China. Representations of China and the Chinese in European Comics and Graphic Novelsããã(Michael LACKNER) Lost in Transhimalayan Transculturality. Opium, Horses and an Englishman between China, Tibet and Nepalããã(Axel MICHAELS) Karl Marx s Critique of Religion and Christian Theologyããã(Michael WELKER) The Expansive Scholarããã(Perry LINK) æ±å¦çç 广大æ主 - æç¼ä¸çç¦æ ¼çº³åçããã(XIA Xiaohong å¤æè¹) Der Meister der Bonmots: Eher eine freundliche Polemik als ein giftiger Essay zur Frage der Sinologie als Wissenschaftããã(Wolfgang KUBIN) Rudolf Wagner and the Taiping Rebellion: A Culturalistic Approachããã(Jan ASSMANN) Rudolf G. Wagner s Photographic Memoryããã(Nara DILLON) A Handful of Haikuããã(Mark ELVIN) Moving Mountains: Of Foolish Old Men Who Want to Move Mountains | Berge versetzen: Von verrückten alten Männern, die Berge versetzen wollen | æå¬ç§»å±±ããã(Barbara MITTLER) Two Images from Mount Tai, in Homage to Rudolf Wagnerããã(Lothar LEDDEROSE) Appendix: List of Publications by Rudolf G. Wagner Of Sun, Moon and Stars: Con-/Traversing China and the World in Salon Style - in place of a Tabula Congratulatoriaããã(Barbara MITTLER) Yang Jiechang s æ¨è¯è Mountains and Rivers so Beautiful (Country of Movements 1949-2019) --- Illustrations (outside the articles): ããã Every Day is a Good Day (calligraphy by Carma Hinton) ããã Sequoia in the Sierra Nevada, California (painting by Mark Elvin, 1963) ãããpaintings and pseudo-calligraphies by Nanny Kim