Dirk Meyer

Associate Professor of Chinese Philosophy
Faculty of Oriental Studies
Official Fellow of The Queen's College
dirk.meyer@queens.ox.ac.uk

 

See Oriental Studies webpage: https://orinst.web.ox.ac.uk/people/dirk-meyer

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.