Dr Mark Strange
Research interests
Medieval Chinese political thought
Medieval Chinese political and intellectual history
Chinese traditional historiography, particularly Zi zhi tong jian
Chinese traditional narrative
Textual criticism
Biography
Mark Strange is a Sinologist with research interests in the history of political thought and the historiography of pre-modern China, in particular between the third and eleventh centuries AD. He has taught Chinese history and Literary Chinese language at the Universities of Warwick, Oxford, and Cambridge. He joined the Australian National University in 2012.
Researcher's projects
On medieval intellectual history and historiography
History and empire in eleventh-century China: a reading of Sima Guang's Zi zhi tong jian
The development of Zi zhi tong jian: a study and critical translation of Sima Guang’s comments as historian
A Comprehensive Mirror to Aid Orderly Rule (Zi zhi tong jian): a translation of juan 1-8, with historical and philological commentary
‘Jie du Song Shen zong “Zi zhi tong jian xu”’ (‘A Reading of Song Shen zong’s ‘Preface to Zi zhi tong jian’)
Studies of the reception history of Zi zhi tong jian in China, Japan, and Korea
with Esther S. Klein: selected translation of Liu Zhiji's Shi tong; edited volume on Liu Zhiji and medieval historiography
with T.H. Barrett, ‘Walking by Itself: The Singular History of the Chinese Cat,’ in Animals Through Chinese History: Earliest times to 1911, ed., Dagmar Schaefer, Martina Siebert, and Roel Sterckx, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018, pp.84-98.
On medieval Buddhism
Da sheng qi xin lun (Treatise on Giving Rise to Faith in the Great Vehicle), tr. with John Jorgensen, Dan Lusthaus, and John Makeham, New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
[‘Exegesis of the Awakening of Faith’, Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, co-director]
Book-length study of representations of Emperor Wu of Liang (r. 502-549)
Current student projects
CHEN Jingjing, Sima Chengzhen (647–735) and the systematization of grotto-heavens
Eugenie EDQUIST, Representations of Wu shan in Tang poetry
Victor FONG, Frontiers and ethnicity in Tang and Song law
SANG Yu, Reality and Function in Xiong Shili's thought (1920-37)
WANG Linfang, Wang Pang's (1044-1076) commentary on Zhuang zi
YANG Qin, Diagrams and classical exegesis in Song China
ZHU Yayun, Nanjing in Late-Ming and Early-Qing China
Past student projects
Recently supervised projects include: representations of Xinjiang in the work of Ji Yun (1724-1805); Yao Xie's (1805-1864) commentary on Hong lou meng; a critical translation of Suseongji by Im Je (1549-87); and accounts of sagehood in Yang Xiong's Fa yan.
Publications
- Strange, M 2018, ‘When Emperor Wu met Bodhidharma: a reading of mid-Tang religious policy', Asia Major, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 116-165.
- Chen, J & Strange, M 2018, 'Wine, Gods, and Morning Dew', in Jane Golley and Linda Jaivin (ed.), The China Story Yearbook 2017: Prosperity, Canberra: ANU Press, pp. 5-7.
- Strange, M & Hruby, J 2015, 'Nan shi', in C Chennault, K Knapp, A Berkowitz & A Dien (ed.), Early Medieval Chinese Texts: A Bibliographic Guide, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, USA, pp. 209-216.
- Strange, M 2014, 'Sima Guang', in Kerry Brown (ed.), Berkshire Dictionary of Chinese Biography, Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, pp. 664-683.
- Strange, M 2011, Book review: 'The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Kang-i Sun Chang and Stephen Owen (eds.)', The Times Literary Supplement, 13 May, pp. 8-9.
- Strange, M 2011, 'Representations of Liang Emperor Wu as a Buddhist Ruler in Sixth- and Seventh-century Texts', Asia Major, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 53-112.
- Strange, M 2008, 'Factionalism and the formation of eleventh-century military policy', Journal of Song-Yuan Studies, vol. 38, pp. 186-189 [full electronic version 21pp: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/eastasian/SungYuan/Warwick.htm]
- Strange, M 2007, 'An Eleventh-Century View of Chinese Ethnic Policy: Sima Guang on the Fall of Western Jin', Journal of Historical Sociology, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 235-258.
- Strange, M 2006, 'A Reading of Hou Jing's Rebellion in Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror to Aid Government): The Construction of Sima Guang's Imperial Vision', in Daria Berg (ed.), Reading China: Fiction, History and the Dynamics of Discourse. Essays in Honour of Professor Glen Dudbridge, Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands, pp. 200-237.
- Strange, M 2006, Book review: 'Ji, Xiao-bin, Politics and Conservatism in Northern Song China: The Career and Thought of Sima Guang (A.D. 1019-1086)', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies vol. 69, no.1: 166-7.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Exegesis of the Awakening of Faith (Secondary Investigator)
