Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 05/10/2026OTD in 1865, Édouard Chavannes was born. As Berthold Laufer said in his obituary in 1918, Chavannes "was not merely a sinologue in the narrow, old-fashioned sense of this misused word, but an orientalist and historian of eminent learning and insight, (1/3) 1113
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 10/08/2026Celebrating the birthday of the doyen of 20th c. Chinese linguistics Wang Li 王力 (10.8.1900-3.5.1986) with a picture of the "artist as a young man" in Paris and a poem lamenting his mentor Luo Changpei 羅常培, born a day before him (9.8.1899-13.12.1958). 061
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 09/08/2026Happy birthday Zheng-Zhang Shangfang 郑张尚芳 (9.8.1933-19.5.2018), “urbling” 癡情 linguist and most passionate and kind scholar of OC ever. m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_f..., view.inews.qq.com/k/20231116A0... 042
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 07/08/2026Lighting a candle for Ted Pulleyblank, who was born OTDT in 1922. asia.ubc.ca/profile/edwi..., www.jstor.org/stable/23753.... Although we only met a few times, we corresponded extensively in the 80ies and 90ies and he helped me develop research interests (1/2) 382
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Fits well with Christoph Harbsmeier's "Confucius ridens" (www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2...) or Li Ling's 李零 depiction of "the sage" as a "stray dog". 030
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Returning from the Bernhard Führer Festspiele through the gardens at Clare College, Cambridge, finally a Confucius Statue I like by Wu Weishan 吴为山 (zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%...). 430
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 24/06/2026Out tomorrow: Very much looking forward to reading this. 0134
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 18/06/2026This is to announce the passing of E. Bruce Brooks (*1936) a few days before reaching his 90th birthday on May 26. EBB was an extraordinary sinologist, co-author, with his wife Taeko, of the fascinating, often provocative "The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His Successors" (1/10) 173
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 04/06/2026Congratulations to Claus U. Rieth, who defended his monumental, erudite and entertaining Ph.D. thesis on the Chinese Tree Peony (mudan 牡丹) with flying colours at TU Dresden yesterday. (96§§8 pp.) Watch out for the book version forthcoming with Brill! 031
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 11/05/20262026 Berggruen essay competition announced: This year's theme "A new axial age?" (submit by August 17th, 2026): tinyurl.com/wmw7uf27 010
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 23/04/2026Quem putas perisse praemissus est (Seneca; 子以為亡者,實先遣也) -- he will be dearly missed! (9/9) 020
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 23/04/2026This is to break the sad news of the passing of Fritz-Heiner Mutschler (4.I.1946-13.IV.2026), classicist and comparative historian of Ancient Rome, Greece and Early China. For some time in the late 80ies, he was the only other German citizen apart from me in Jilin province. (1/9) 120
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 02/04/2026Congratulations to @mzorki.bsky.social who defended her fascinating thesis @AOI/UZH on Tuesday. Everything you always wanted to know about 物 and much more ... 090
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 11/03/2026I just heard via a colleague who lives in the same street, that Rodo Pfister (*14.10.1962 in Langenthal) passed away a few days ago. He was a prolific Early China scholar, with encyclopedic interests in the history of medicine, sexology, materia medica, drugs and spices, (1/14) 2147
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 01/03/202613th Summer School of Chinese Lx, July 27-31 2026 @ U. Stuttgart, offering courses on "The Syntax-Semantics Interface of Modern Mandarin", "The diachronic development of the TAM system of Chinese", "The Syntax of Cantonese" and "Sinitic Languages of the Pearl River Region". 023
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 23/02/2026OTDT 1930 Wolfgang Bauer, the great Munich sinologist was born. He must have been an extraordinarily inspiring teacher, judging from the wonderful stories by his students collected in the memorial volume dedicated to him (1/5) 172
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 09/01/2026(A longer obituary I wrote on him these last days will appear in the next issue of "Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung" (BJOAF), but I am uploading his list of publications for easy reference to all interested as images below.) (7/7) 000
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 09/01/2026As the Bamboo annals said about his great hero Mu wang 穆王, whom he followed on his travels through China and Central Asia in mianbaoche and jeeps, and through commentaries and citations on paper at home, "the king has ascended" (wang zhi 王陟). R.i.p.! (6/7) 100
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 09/01/2026On December 19 last year, the great sinologist Manfred Frühauf ended his suffering from ALS, aged 75. Manfred was my first teacher of Classical and Modern Chinese at J.W. Goethe University Frankfurt, before becoming Director of the "Sinicum" at Bochum U., (1/7) 161
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 15/12/2025The editors of Journal of the European Ass. for Chinese Studies invite submissions for a special issue on the state of Chinese Studies in Europe scheduled for publication in 2026, building on the anniversary symposium held in Paris in November 2025. (cf. detailed call below). 033
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 03/12/2025Interested in the looong Chinese prehistory of the concept of "brainwashing" (xinao 洗腦) before its well-known appearance in the mid-20th century cold war story? Check out my article available in this volume: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...! 063
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 03/12/2025Congratulations @jim_bach_ and co-editors Brigit Knüsel Adamec and Justyna Jaguścik on the publication of the Festschrift Andrea Riemenschnitter,"Re-Thinking Literary China", available as the latest OA volume in our Worlds of East Asia Series here: www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...! 140
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 22/11/2025Then off to the fantastic Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vitton today. (Mao, Davos, Graubünden, Vierwaldstättersee). 030
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 19/11/2025OTD in 1917, Paul Leo-Mary Serruys (d. 16.VIII.1999) was born in Flanders, who spent the first time of his life as a missionary of the Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae in China, the second as one of the leading scholars of Old Chinese philology in the US and Taiwan. 1/4 141
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 19/11/2025News about the 7000 year old "earliest Chinese script" from the Liulinxi 柳林溪 site which circulated on the Chinese internet in October are starting to reach English language media: tinyurl.com/dnwvsbyd. 172
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 10/11/2025Hong Kong Baptist University Fellowship Scheme for Ph.D. Students (apply by Dec 1): www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/rgc/fund... 022
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 11/10/2025OTD in 1894 Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–1894) passed away impoverished in London. To commemorate the extremely productive and pleasantly eccentric "Sino-Babylonian" scholar, I uploaded a little CV (to appear in shortened form in the ODNB) here: tinyurl.com/4nbf96bm. 161
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 29/09/2025Happy to celebrate the Ph.D. of Milad Abedi, formerly at our "Sino-Indo-Iranica rediviva" project (data.snf.ch/grants/grant...), now at U. Innsbruck (tinyurl.com/2eaympve) & doing exciting work on the Pahlavi Papyri of the Austrian National Library. Congratulations again! 060
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 24/09/2025Join our workshop on "Literary Forms and Epistemic Goals in Early Chinese Philosophical Texts" here at UZH next week (off- or online) and read about Rafael Suter's project behind it here: data.snf.ch/grants/grant...! 087
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 24/09/2025Interesting paper on the research directions of our Japanese colleagues. jww.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/publishments..., cf. also x.com/ZhenbenBook/... 000
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 15/09/2025Das China-Zentrum e.V. in Sankt Augustin sucht zum Frühjahr 2026 Chefredakteur/-in und Mitarbeiter/in mit Expertise im Bereich China und Christentum mit 100% Beschäftigungsumfang (unbefristet; Bewerbungsschluss 20.10.2025) 011
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 08/08/2025Five Ph.D. positions at the Swedish Academy, for work on philology, textual criticism, linguistics, literary and source studies, language history etc. with possible areal focus on Chinese, among many other (apply by Sep 1). tinyurl.com/yc7pazec 032
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 08/08/2025Network analysis of the spread of Laozi translations during different periods since ca. 1900, based on Misha Tadd's "Laozegetics" data. Notice how France and Germany slowly moved to the periphery: www.nature.com/articles/s40... 091
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 08/08/2025Curious study using emotion recognition algorithms on 2248 Mogao facial images to study the frequency of 7 basic emotional categories (neutral, sadness, happiness, fear, anger, disgust, surprise): www.nature.com/articles/s40.... 110
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 25/07/2025An especially refreshing read after watching all the pathos about the other 周 (the dynastic name) here in CCTV's 尋周記, cf.https://tinyurl.com/3pkaxx4n. 020
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 15/06/2025More unexpected: A Jingdezhen 景德鎮 lidded cup from the Helmut Opletal collection 1973 with an "Little red book" citation on the back and a female postal delivery comrade (in pants) on the front side. 040
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 15/06/2025Cool exhibition "Wer hat die Hosen an?" in the Vienna Weltmuseum. On display, of courese, a replica of the fascinating Yanghai pants (cf. doi.org/10.1016/j.qu...). 182
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 14/06/2025(The Swiss Toblerone chocolate ad in Esperanto not bad either). 030
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 14/06/2025Nice trouvailles in the wonderful little Esperanto-Museum of the Austrian National Library in Vienna today: A picture of the L. Zamenhof-day in Beijing in 1925 and a poster of the Esperanto World Congress in 2004. 184
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 26/05/2025Koordinator:inn:enstelle Chinazentrum FAU Kiel (TV-L 13, Bewerbungsschluss 15.5.2025) 000
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 26/05/2025Non-tenured Assistant (Junior) professorship in Taiwan studies at U. Tübingen (apply by July 1, 2025). 000
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 09/05/2025Summer school: „Nature in Chinese Language Poetry Across Time and Space“ at Charles U. in Prague (apply by May 31): cckisc.ff.cuni.cz/cs/prednasko... 030
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 05/05/2025An unexpected trouvaille in the "Femmes chinoises" exhibition at the Fondation Baur in Genevea yesterday: A painting of Lake Thun in the Bernese Oberland by the famous New Moon Society poet Ling Shuhua 凌書華 (1900-1990). 020
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 25/03/2025Cfp: Manuscript studies in Asia and Africa (Naples, 6-7 Oct 2025) 065
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 03/03/2025Joseph de Guignes (1721-1800) is smiling from his grave: His connection between Huns and Xiongnu, first formulated in the _Mémoire historique sur l'origine des Huns et des Turks adressé à M. Tanevot_ (www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/details/b...) of 1748 (1/2) 121
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 04/02/2025Full professorship in Indo-European linguistics and philology at EPHE/PSL, Paris: www.ephe.psl.eu/sites/defaul... (apply by March 11) 03019
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 26/01/2025Looking at one of the lesser known versions of Anselm Kiefer's "Lasst tausend Blumen blühen" ("千花齊放") series (1998) in the Palazzo Ca'Pesaro in Venice today today. Love the way in which he used sun flower seeds (瓜子儿) to do this. 110
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 24/01/2025I learned yesterday that professor Hirayama Hisao 平山久雄, a leading expert of Middle and Old Chinese phonology and Tōdai Emeritus passed away on Dec. 24 last year, aged 92. Professor Hirayama's conributions touched on many key issues in Chinese historical phonology, especially Old Chinese tonogenesis 1107
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Newly established Robert van Gulik Fellowship supporting research using the Leiden University sinological collections: www.library.universiteitleiden.nl/special-coll... 0126
Wolfgang Behr / 畢鶚 (氒/厥/攸) @behrwolf.bsky.social · 20/12/2024And here's another long-awaited X-mas present, which just arrived in the mail: Jeff Tharsen's "Chinese Euphonics", vol. 29 in our "Worlds of East Asia" series, available OA @ www.degruyter.com/document/doi..., Congratulations @tharsen.bsky.social and merry yuletide! 12511