University of Heidelberg

Between East and West: Transcultural Flows of Encyclopedic Knowledge. International Conference, held in Heidelberg, April 21-23, 2010

Programme and Abstracts

 

Wednesday, 21.4.2010

14:30-15:00       Introduction by Prof. Dr. Herren-Oesch

15:00-18:00       Panel I: The practice of encyclopedia

                             Chair: Madeleine Herren-Oesch

15:00-15:45       Fumio Saitô (Tôkyô): Between intellectual ideals and economical compulsions – the making of Japanese encyclopedia

15:45-16:15       Coffee break

16:15-17:00       Sergei Kravets (Moscow): Creation of modern scientific universal encyclopedia and joint responsability of authors and publishers for reliability and actuality of its contents

17:00-17:45       Jens Petersen (Heidelberg): The encyclopaedia database

17:45-18:00       Final discussion

18:00                           Joint dinner

Thursday, 22.4.2010

09:00-13:00       Panel II: Encyclopedia and transcultural interdisciplinarity

                             Chair: Barbara Mittler

09:00-09:15    Short introduction

09:15-10:00       Mark Bassin (Birmingham): Eurasianism – Russia as an alternative to Europe and Asia

10:00-10:45       Jatindra Nayak (Orissa): Reviewing the West: A perspective on Sankshipta Odia Gyanakosha or Encyclopedia Orissana

10:45-11:15       Coffee break

11:15-12:00       Tadashi Ogawa (Kyôto/Okazaki): Encyclopedic Knowledge and systematic thinking – Is there any difference in traditional knowledge typologies between East and West?

12:00-12:45       Andreas Mueller-Lee (Bochum): Between natural studies, evidential studies, polyhistoricism, and the curiosity of the strange – Encyclopedic strategies and the case of Western learning (sohak 西学) in 19th century Choson Korea

12:45-13:00       Final discussion

13:00-15:00                   Lunch break

15:00-19:00       Panel II: Encyclopedia as multi-layered concept

                        Chair: Georg Lehner

15:00-15:15    Short introduction

15:15-16:00    Isamu Miyahara (Nagoya): Mental lexicon and encyclopedic knowledge

16:00-16:45       Michael Kinski (Frankfurt): Treasure Boxes, Fabrics, and Mirrors. On the Contents and the Classification of Popular Encyclopedias from Early Modern Japan

16:45-17:15       Coffee break

17:15-18:00       Alan Rauch (Charlotte): Manufacturing and Consuming Knowledge – The pragmatics and poetics of the encyclopaedia

18:00-18:45       Milena Dolezelova (Prague): The Apex of Late Qing Encyclopedias (1903-1911)

18:45-19:00       Final discussion

Friday, 23.4.2010

09:00-13:00       Panel III: The instrumentalization of encyclopedia

                             Chair: Irena Vladimirsky

09:00-09:15    Short introduction

09:15-10:00       Reinhard Emmerich (Münster): Preliminary remarks on Bo shi liu tie by Bo Juyi (772-846)

10:00-10:45       Marion Eggert (Bochum): "The place of knowledge: Ch'oe Han'gi's (1803-1875) world geography 'Chigu chônyo' (1857) as an encyclopedic endeavour"

10:45-11.15       Coffee break

11:15-12:00       Georg Lehner (Vienna/Heidelberg): Things Chinese transformed? Knowledge on China in nineteenth-century European encyclopedias

12:00-12:45       Maria Grajdian (Heidelberg): Encyclopedic practice and the emergence of a new nation – Nishi Amane's Hyakugaku renkan

12:45-13:00       Final discussion

13:00-15:00             Lunch break

15:00-19:00       Panel IV: Regional case study: Russian encyclopedia

                        Chair: Maria Grajdian

15:00-15:15    Short introduction

15:15-16:00       Irena Vladimirsky (Achva): The big Soviet enterprise - Great Soviet Encyclopedia's story

16:00-16:45       Tatiana Artemyeva (Saint Petersburg): Encyclopedism in Russia in the Enlightenment

16:45-17:15       Coffee break

17:15-18:00       Elena Aurilene (Khabarovsk): The first Soviet experience of regional encyclopedia

18:00-18:45       Maria Krotova (Saint Petersburg): 'What helps to German, kills the Russian' – on Russian version of the German Brockhaus

18:45-19:00    Final discussion

19:00                           Joint dinner

 

 

Abstracts and Biographies

Tatiana ARTEMYEVA (Saint Petersburg): Encyclopedism in Russia in the Enlightenment

Professor of Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, the Faculty of Philosophy of Man, Department of Theory and History of Culture; senior researcher and Head of Saint Petersburg branch of the Institution of Philosophy Russian Academy of Sciences; Director of research programs Saint Petersburg Center for History of Ideas. Membership in The Russian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, The International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, The Russian Philosophical Society, Association for Women in Slavic Studies. (tatart@mail.ru)

The encyclopedic look at the world was an outcome of new epistemological principles and the separation of science into a specific sphere of knowledge and thus it was attractive to Russian scholars. But they had never followed famous examples like Johann Heinrich Zedler's Universal-Lexicon, Encyclopaedia Britannica and even Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonne des sciences, des arts et des métiers. This statement may seem paradoxical, especially when French encyclopedism is concerned. Texts from the Encyclopédie were translated into Russian, the authors were supported by many outstanding Russian aristocrats, including the Empress Catherine the Great herself (she even proposed to transfer the publication into the Russian Empire, to Riga). Though many French philosophers, first of all Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, Rousseau, Montesquieu, were very popular among the noble intellectual elite in Russia, these thinkers have never been studied systematically. They have been of interest as persons, social philosophers, anti-clericals, political thinkers, but not in connection with the specificity of the encyclopedic discourse. Russian readers paid much more attention to ideas expressed by philosophers then to ways their texts were organized. Thus the very type of encyclopedic discourse proposed by Diderot and D'Alembert was secondary, optional one for Russian readers. There were many scholars and scientists-encyclopedists in Russia, but no serious attempt to create an encyclopedic edition emulating famous European patterns. Principal encyclopedic projects of that epoch as The Dictionary of the Russian Academy (1789-1794), A New Explanatory Dictionary by N. Yanovsky (1803-1806), The Geographical Lexicon of Russia (1788-1789) and an unrealized ambitious project of A Dictionary about Russian State were not universal, but national.

Elena AURILENE (Khabarovsk): The First Soviet Experience of Regional Encyclopedia

Professor on Political History, Political History Chair, Far Eastern State Humanitarian University. Sphere of research interests includes Siberian Regional history and History of Russian settlement in the Far East; Frontier History and History of the Russian emigrants in China during 1920s'-1950s'; Regional Intellectual history and Intellectual history of the Russian emigrant in the Far East (China and Japan). Elena_aur@hotmail.ru

In 1929 the first regional encyclopedia appeared in the Soviet Union. That was the Siberian Soviet Encyclopedia, printed in Novosibirsk, which represented the first systematic compendium of regional information. The reason for compiling the Encyclopedia was purely practical. In the Big Soviet Encyclopedia (1927), the huge geographical region defined as “Siberia” was presented very poorly in 115 columns. The Siberian Soviet Encyclopedia included such topics as nature, population, economy, social life, political and intellectual history. Unfortunately it appeared in the period of repressions: four editors of the Encyclopedia - B.Z. Shumiatskii, A.A. Anson, M.M. Basov, P.K. Kazarinov were shot or died in the GULAG. Only three of the planned five volumes were published. The forth volume remained unpublished until 1992 for two reasons: many people described in the volume were repressed and some of the project’s authors were arrested in the 1930-es as “enemies of the people”. That is why the editorial board decided to completely revise volume IV. For fear of political accusations some authors declined to write articles on political events in Siberia, especially concerning Stalin. On May 17, 1937 the regional committee of the VKP(b) stopped  publication of the Encyclopedia and liquidated its editorial board. Manuscript articles for volume V remained in the State Archive of Novosibirsk region. In 1992 volume IV was published in New York. The appearance of the Siberian Soviet Encyclopedia inspired similar regional projects. In the late 1920-es an editorial board was created in Khabarovsk. 566 authors were involved in the work on the Encyclopedia of the Far Eastern Region. The first result of their work was published in 1930. It was the prospectus (“Prospekt-slovnik”) of the Encyclopedia of the Far Eastern Region. The list of projected topics included nature, population, populated sites, economy, culture, history and bordering countries. The projected Encyclopedia was not published because of repressions. Materials of the project are held by the State Archives of the Khabarovsk Region.

Mark BASSIN (Birmingham): Eurasianism: Russia as an Alternative to Europe and Asia

Professor of Human Geography, GEES; Adjunct Professor, Center for Russian and East European Studies University of Birmingham; Associate Editor for the journal Geopolitics. Research interests are focused on three broad thematic areas: geographies of nationhood and national identity; geopolitics and the role of space and territory in contemporary political ideologies; the politics and political aesthetics of nature representation and landscape arts. (m.bassin@bham.ac.uk)

Russia’s understanding of its position between Europe and Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries has traditionally been associated with a fundamental ambivalence: a clear desire to be associated with Europe, offset by a fundamental insecurity about its claim to this status and an apprehension that it actually belongs more genuinely to Asia. The doctrines of Eurasianism elaborated in the 1920s and 1930s are often seen as a decisive break with this tradition—a vigorous denunciation of any suggestion that Russia is a European society and a defiant affirmation of its affinities and fraternities with the peoples of Asia.  In this paper, I considered and contested this interpretation of Eurasianism.  While the Eurasians did indeed bring a new and positive view of Asia, in fact there were ultimately concerned not to demonstrate that Russia shared its national identity with the rest of Asia but rather to establish a completely separate and alternative identity.  I will argue that Eurasian doctrines are best understood not so much against in the framework of traditional Russian attitudes but rather against the post-World War I background of Spenglerian Kulturpessimismus on the one hand and Wilsonian advocacy of de-colonization and national self-determination on the other.  Ultimately, the concept of “Eurasia” was devised not only to set Russia apart from the West but equally to set the territories and peoples of what the Russian empire had called “Asiatic Russia” apart from Asia.

Milena DOLEZELOVA-VELINGEROVA (Prague): The Apex of Late Qing Encyclopaedias (1903-1911)

The presentation gave a report on the so far little known encyclopaedia A Comprehensive Encyclopaedic Dictonary (1911) and attempted a definition on what is modernity in modern Chinese lexicography by a comparison with Huang Moxi's A New Comprehensive Encyclopaedic Dictionary for Common Use that was published in the same year(1911). This paper explained why the first decade of the 20th century was the most prolific period in the development of late Qing encyclopaedias.

Marion EGGERT (Bochum): "The place of knowledge: Ch'oe Han'gi's (1803-1875) world geography 'Chigu chônyo' (1857) as an encyclopedic endeavour"

 

Reinhard EMMERICH (Münster): Vorläufiges zum Bo shi liu tie des Bo Juyi (772-846)

Reinhard Emmerich (geb. 1954), since 1997 Professor für Sinologie an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster und Prodekan des Fachbereichs Philologie. Studium der Sinologie an den Universitäten Heidelberg, Peking und Hamburg. Magisterexamen (1981) und Promotion (1984, mit einer Arbeit über Li Ao) ebendort; nach der Promotion Forschungsaufenthalte am Jinbun kagaku kenkyû-sho (Institute for Research in Humanities) der Universität Kyoto (1985-1987) und am Department of Asian Languages and Literature der University of Washington, Seattle (1988); Habilitation an der Universität Hamburg (1992). Berufliches: Wissenschaftlicher Assistent am Seminar für Sprache und Kultur Chinas der Universität Hamburg (1988-1994); Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeit am Institut für Asienkunde, Hamburg (1995-1996); Vertretung einer Professur für Sinologie an der Universität Köln (1996-1997); Ruf an die Universität Köln (1999, abgelehnt); Visiting Professor, Department of Asian Languages and Literature, University of Washington, Seattle (winter term, 2002); Visiting Professor, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University (Wintersemester 2006/2007); Ruf an die Universität Bonn (2009, abgelehnt). Forschungsinteressen vornehmlich: Kultur- und Geistesgeschichte der Han- und der Tang-Zeit.

Das von Bo Juyi verfaßte, unter dem Namen Bo shi liu tie und ähnlichen Bezeichnungen bekannte Werk, ist eines der wenigen privaten lei shu aus der Tang-Zeit. Unbesehen dessen, auch unbesehen seines enormen Umfangs, seiner weiten Verbreitung und starken Rezeption hat das Werk in der Forschung wenig Aufmerksamkeit gefunden. Der Vortrag näherte sich ihm unter drei Aspekten: Der erste Teil bot bibliographische Informationen und solche zur Druckgeschichte, und er thematisierte die Behauptung, der textus receptus sei nicht identisch mit dem von Bo Juyi autorisierten Werk. Der zweite Teil war der Beschreibung der inneren Ordnung des Bo shi liu tie gewidmet, die in jeder Hinsicht durch Uneinheitlichkeit geprägt ist. Eine so große Uneinheitlichkeit, daß die Annahme unwahrscheinlich ist, das Werk sei durch eine Hand redaktionell bearbeitet worden. Im dritten Teil wurden Passus des Bo shi liu tie mit Werken kontrastiert, die Bo Juyi um 802 n.Chr. verfaßte, um sich auf eine Prüfung vorzubereiten. Zahlreiche Ähnlichkeiten, ja wörtliche Übereinstimmungen zwischen dem Bo shi liu tie und diesen Werken (Bai dao pan) zeigen Bo Juyi als Meister der literarischen Mehrfachverwertung. 

Maria GRAJDIAN (Heidelberg): Encyclopedic Practice and the Emergence of a New Nation: Nishi Amane’s Hyakugaku Renkan

Maria Grajdian, PhD, was born in 1977 in Bucharest, Romania. After having majored in Musicology/Ethnomusicology, Japanese Studies and French Philology at the University of Cologne, Germany, she achieved her PhD at the University of Music and Drama in Hannover, Germany, with a thesis on cultural construction of modern Japanese identity on the basis of all-female musical theater Takarazuka Revue’s marketing and performance strategies. Currently, she is postdoctoral researcher in the research project “Hidden Grammars of Transculturality: Migrations of Encyclopedic Knowledge and Power” (D11) within the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shifting Asymmetries in Cultural Flows” at University of Heidelberg.

Nowadays, it is an open secret that Japan is redefining superpower – though as cultural issue. An important interpret of its ambitions are modern Japanese encyclopedias which on one hand deal with knowledge conceptualization and organization as means to enforce a specific worldview as human experience and progress, and on the other hand underline hidden interactions between knowledge and information in a transcultural context. While focusing on Nishi Amane’s seminal lecture series from 1870-1871 bearing as title the English word Encyclopedia and as under-title the Japanese construction Hyakugaku renkan (literally The Linked Circle of Many Sciences), it was this presentation’s goal to underline some of the strategies employed by this leading intellectual and political figure of the Meiji period to implement a knowledge system according to Western standards, but patterned upon own cultural and spiritual heritage. Beyond translation and sedimentation through appropriation there is the performative power of language – and its identificatory mechanisms.

Michael KINSKI (Frankfurt): Treasure Boxes, Fabrics, and Mirrors. On the Contents and the Classification of Popular Encyclopedias from Early Modern Japan

 

Sergei KRAVETS (Moscow): Creation of Modern Scientific Universal Encyclopaedia and Joint Responsibility of Authors and Publishers for Reliability and Actuality of its Content

Principal of the Church-scientific center 'Orthodox Encyclopaedia', President of the cultural fund 'Film-TV Company 'Orthodox Encyclopaedia', Executive editor of scientific center 'Great Russian Encyclopaedia'. Member of the Writer's Union of Russia, member of the Russian Peace Foundation, member of the Expert Reward Council of metropolitan Makarii (Bulgakov), member of Synodal Theological Commission, rewarded by state, church and public rewards. (slk@greatbook.ru)

Encyclopaedia does not have a right of making mistakes; intellectual mistakes copy themselves in each encyclopaedia volume and in every citation of misleading entry. Every Encyclopaedia focuses on the two main principles: actuality and reliability of its content. Both principles combine responsibility of publisher and contributor. Encyclopaedia contributor should be an authority on his/her specific field of knowledge and be involved in its development. Each encyclopaedia entry before publishing passed over 12 different readings and 2 opponent reviews. 'Great Russian Encyclopedia' has 30 subject departments and each department has its own curator from the Russian Academy of Sciences. More than that: 50 leading specialists from the Academy are permanent members of Encyclopaedia scientific editing board. Russian Academy of Sciences without doubt is very respectable institution but sometimes we involve into entries writing specialists form 'less' academic spheres, such as art and music. On describing dynamic society processes we turn to 'men of action' and less to 'men of theory', for example entry on budget and money circulation were written by specialist from Central bank. Another encyclopaedia task is education, educate is better on the positive examples of creators and not destroyers: Great Russian Encyclopedia has numerous new entries on state authorities of 18th and 19th centuries who establish Russian civilization, economy and culture. Encyclopaedia is working with facts and not emotion but still it is very difficult to give objective description of this or that personality, especially from recent past like entries 'El'tsyn', 'Gorbachev' and 'Afghan conflict'. Our additional big project is subject 'Orthodox Encyclopaedia'. 70 years of atheism and taboo on theological research made this edition a kind of social event, its content, coordinators and contributors turned it to unique encyclopaedia ever published in Russia.

Maria KROTOVA (Saint Petersburg): 'What helps to German, kills the Russian': on Russian version of the German Brockhaus

Chair on Russian and Foreign Countries history, Saint Petersburg University of Finance and Economy. Research interests focuses on Russian regional history (Russian Far East), Russian geopolitical history (Russian geopolitical interests in Manchuria) and history of the Russian-speaking Diaspora in China. (Mary_krot@mail.ru)

Successful publications of Brockhaus-Efron 'Encyclopaedical Dictionary' had everything behind its respectable façade: state and society requirements, publishing house status, money, wonderful technical organization and best encyclopaedia department scientific editors. This unbelievable mixture turned Brockhaus-Efron 'Encyclopaedical Dictionary' into a kind of standard which was numerously copied in Tsarist and Soviet Russia with a considerable regularity. From the very beginning the 'Encyclopaedical dictionary' story sounded like pure commercial enterprise of slight adaptation and translation for the Russian reader the 13th edition of Brockhaus Conversations-Lexicon. Problems began with the first printed volume: angry subscribers threatened to cancel their subscription if the dictionary continued to be 'German'. It was not enough only to enlarge Dictionary's 'Russian' content but to turn it to the first Russian Encyclopaedical Dictionary. In 1891, after the death of Prof. I. Andreevskii, the first Dictionary editor in chief, two prominent professors and supporters of the Russian national idea K. Arsenyev and F. Petrushevskii decided to realize Russian Brockhaus idea on practice. They succeeded to recruit as dictionary permanent and temporarily contributors the best staff of 742 distinguished Russian university professors. Arsenyev and Petrushevskii persuaded Efron to replace poor German translations with original entries written by Russian professors, even all the entries concerning German history, science, culture were written by Russians. Economic profit gave its way to society educational mission. Encyclopaedia should inspire reader's mind and thoughts, demonstrate unity of three basic principles: popularization of science, academic content and language clarity. Encyclopaedical Dictionary contributors enjoyed freedom in writing and arrangement of encyclopaedia entries that sometimes enlarged twice originally planned entry length. It resulted at the end in increasing number of preliminary planned Encyclopaedical Dictionary volumes twice as well. But these two elements made Brockhaus-Efron 'Encyclopaedical Dictionary' completely unique – specially designed entries and style of writing. Reprinted Brockhaus-Efron edition published in 2005 disappeared from the book stores in a couple of days and gave a push to publishing of the 'Great Russian Encyclopaedia'.

Georg LEHNER (Vienna/Heidelberg): Things Chinese transformed? Knowledge on China in nineteenth-century European encyclopaedias

Georg Lehner graduated from the University of Vienna, Austria (Ph. D., History) and teaches at the Department of History of the University of Vienna. His research includes a project on “China in European encyclopaedias, 1700-1850” (funded by the Austrian Science Fund, 2006-2008). Since 2009 he is cataloguing the Chinese collection of the Austrian National Library, Vienna. He has published on the history of Austria-Hungary’s presence in East Asia and on the history of printing Chinese characters in nineteenth-century Europe.

As a consequence of the so-called ’opening’ of China the quantity of information on the country and its people increased considerably.  Research on Sino-Western relations so has neglected forms of intra-European flows of knowledge on China for the period after 1840. Before the background of different kinds of European approaches to China my paper focused on the evolution of intra-European flows of knowledge considering the persistence and change of sources as well as the processes of updating information on China. These processes of including new and reliable information in encyclopaedias highly depended on the quality of available sources (ranging from travelogues to articles in scholarly journals also including Chinese sources) as well as on predominant elements of European conceptions and images of China.

Isamu MIYAHARA (Nagoya): Mental lexicon and encyclopedic knowledge

 

Andreas MUELLER-LEE (Bochum): Between Natural Studies, Evidential Studies, Polyhistoricism, and the Curiosity of the Strange: Encyclopedic Strategies and the Case of Western Learning (sŏhak 西學) in 19th Century Chosŏn Korea

Andreas Mueller-Lee studied Korean and Chinese studies and is currently a post-doc research fellow at Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Germany. For further information please visit: www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/skk/.

The scholarly tradition of Chosŏn-Dynasty (1392-1910) produced a set of remarkable encyclopedic compilations which are in view of volume, thematic breadth, and range of distribution often not comparable to Chinese projects, but since the early 17th Century these writings increasingly liberated for a number of reasons from the demand to merely supplement the Chinese tradition and thus can to a certain degree be seen as proto-national epistemic key medium. Chinas encounter with the West in person of the Jesuits and their strategy to proselytize by attracting the court and the scholars with a package of “Western Learning” challenged – even from distance as in the case of Korea – previous epistemic standards therein as well as new compilation projects. This contribution shall use as case study the “Scattered Manuscripts of Glosses and Comments of Oju” (Oju yŏnmun changjŏn san’go 五洲衍文長箋散稿), i.e. Yi Kyugyŏng 李圭景 (1788-1856), a work based on at least three generations of distinguished private scholarship but was in its preserved form compiled during the first half of the 19th century, as well as selected earlier encyclopedic writings to discuss to what extent and by the use of which strategies representative areas of new knowledge as astronomy, geography and religion were adapted and integrated, and furthermore, whether and to what extent the procedures itself are an answer to these challenges.

Jatindra NAYAK (Orissa): Reviewing the West: A Perspectve on Sankshipta Odia Gyanakosha or Encyclopedia Orissana

Ph.D (Utkal): Associate Professor, Department of English, Utkal University Bhubaneswar, ORISSA, INDIA, 751004.

In India under colonial rule, members of the educated middle class came to look upon encyclopedias  as cultural status symbols and lamented the absence of encyclopedias in Indian languages. To fill this perceived gap, dedicated individuals undertook to compile encyclopedias in various Indian languages and their projects came to be seen as integral to the nation-building initiative during the struggle for independence. After independence the state encouraged compilation of encyclopedias and  attempts were made under the leadership of universities to take up ambirious encyclopedic projects. In this paper I focused on the Utkal University project of compiling a multi-volume encyclopedia in Oriya. For several reasons the project failed to realize its goal and was discontinued after the publication in 1963 of a four volume digest titled Sanksipta Odia Gyanakosha. I discussed the ways in which the encyclopedic project was defined conceived and executed, the ideas of people associated with the project, especially those of its chief editor, a western-educated poet and scholar. Particular attention was paid in the paper to the entries on western nations and biographies of selected westerners. A close look at these will enable us to identify new attitudes to the west and western knowledge systems and changing ways of constructing the west in the context of a world which has only recently been decolonized. The entries will be compared and contrasted with those included in encyclopedias before independence.

Tadashi OGAWA (Kyôto/Okazaki): Enzyklopädisches Wissen und systematisches Denken – Gibt es eine Verschiedenheit der traditionellen Wissenstypen zwischen West und Ost?

Professor emeritus der Staatlichen Universität Kyoto, zurzeit Rektor an der University of Human Environments, Okazaki, Aichi-Präfektur. Forschungsschwerpunkte in der Philosophie ist Phänomenologie (Husserl, Heidegger und Hermann Schmitz), Griechische Philosophie und Konfuzius-Menzius. Derzeitige Forschungsthemen: Leib, Qi (Atmosphäre) und medizinische Philosophie.

Heute kann man leicht enzyklopädisches Wissen haben, beispielsweise durch Internet insbesondere durch Google. Dieses Wissen ist Viel-Wissen, Wissen von vielen Dingen. Aber dieses Wissen von vielen Dingen bedeutet nicht immer die wahre Grundeinsicht. Heraklit sagt, Vielwissen lehrt nicht den noos. Der Noos ist nichts anders als die Grundeinsicht. Dieses Denken Heraklits war immer für mich die Anleitung des Vortrags. Man kann heute leicht das enzyklopädisches Wissen durch Web und Internet bekommen. Dieses leicht zu gewinnende Wissen ist richtig für das Sichbilden des Menschen positiv zu bewerten?

Jens PETERSEN (Heidelberg): The Encyclopaedia Database

1979-1983: Degrees in Chinese Studies and Philosophy. 1983-2007: Teaching Chinese and Chinese history, research stays in Kyoto and Cambridge. 1995-2010: Database and web interface programmer for the Thesaurus Linguae Sericae Project. 2008-2010 at Heidelberg Research Architecture at the Cluster of Excellence.

I gave a brief introduction to some of the considerations that lie behind the development of the Encyclopaedia Database and how this database integrates with the Transcultural Concepts Database. Topics such as Text Encoding Initiative, structured keywords and web of argumentation had been addressed. The Encyclopaedia database will be demonstrated only in July.

Alan RAUCH (Charlotte): Manufacturing & Consuming Knowledge: The Pragmatics & Poetics of the Encyclopædia

Department of English, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223, arauch@uncc.edu, http://uncc.edu/arauch.

Even though we often have a sense of encyclopedias as embodiments of the zeitgeist, he ideological valences of encyclopædias are often difficult to assess.  The reality, in the production of encyclopedic compilations, is that they are often produced over a long period of time, by many different contributors (many of whom relied on plagiarism to meet deadlines), and often more than one editor.  For scholars of “knowledge texts,” this presents an interesting challenge—particularly as we begin to think of digital encyclopedic compilations which are even more fluid and scattered.  In this paper I discussed the idea of the 19th century encyclopedia as an emblem of its particular cultural moment, by considering the ways in which the encyclopedia “captures” the zeitgeist, by inclusion and omission, as well as the ways in which it fails to account for the temper of the times. I will consider the endurance of “misinformation” codified by the encyclopedic process, as well as the prospective problems of the encyclopedic form in the digital future.

Fumio SAITÔ (Tôkyô): Between intellectual ideals and economical compulsions – the making of Japanese encyclopedia

 

Irena VLADIMIRSKY (Achva): The Big Soviet Enterprise: Great Soviet Encyclopaedia' story

Chair of History and Jewish Studies, Academic Library director, Achva Academic College of Education (Israel) and Postdoctorate researcher, University of Heidelberg, Cluster of Excellence 'Asia and Europe in a Global Context'. Member of the Israeli Association for Slavic Studies, International Association for Jewish Studies and International Association for Central Asian Studies. (irena@achva.ac.il)

Creating of Bolshevik-oriented encyclopaedia was one of the important tasks of the new regime and may be one of the most complicated tasks. The desire to destroy the old encyclopaedia tradition and create the new way of Marxist thinking was not enough; in a course of time it became urgent necessity to learn technical and academic sides of encyclopaedia publishing and their adaptation to the new Bolshevik socialist reality. Only in 1924 by the decree of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR Cooperative publishing house 'Soviet Encyclopedia' (Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia) was organized under the auspices of the State Publishing House. Initially it was planning to start with the first edition of the Great Soviet encyclopaedia at the end of 1924 and complete all the work within three years with 25 published volumes. Problems started from the very beginning: from the physical location of the Encyclopaedia publishing house and till the organization of Encyclopaedia subject departments and lists of its editors and contributors. Not only that practically all persons proposed were researches with pre-revolutionary experience and very doubtful political affiliation but every candidate appointment should be approved by the Presidium of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, consisted of party and soviet authorities. First volume of the first edition was released only in 1926 and its last volume was published in 1946. List of departments and sub-department editors within the first volume easily can be used as illustration for Great Stalinist purges of 1937-1938: ten out of twelve were repressed or were successful to die before. In 1929 number of planned volumes grew to 50. Volumes were not published alphabetically but as their content were ready: volume 65 was published in 1934 and volume 55 was published only in 1946, during war years only two encyclopaedia volumes were released.

Bad experience with the first edition of the Great Soviet encyclopaedia was a starting point in rethinking on publishing its second edition. In February 1949 in the newspaper 'Culture and Life' (Kul'tura i Zhizn') was published a Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the publishing of new edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. New edition of the Great Soviet encyclopaedia should became an organized set of materials on social, economic and natural sciences, technology and other important field of knowledge. New Encyclopaedia edition must emphasize the historical achievements of the socialist construction in the Soviet Union and to become a universal guide for the vast circles of the soviet intelligentsia. Second edition if the Great soviet Encyclopaedia came to its end in 1957 and contains forty-nine encyclopaedia volumes, one subject volume (volume fifty was devoted to USSR and was specially published toward the 40^th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution) and one additional volume (volume fifty-one).  Beginning from 1957 Great Soviet Encyclopaedia publishing house began to release 'Great Soviet Encyclopaedia Annual' supplement volume with updated information on important encyclopaedia entries. In 1960 was published two-volume Alphabetical Index to the Second Edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia.