Wiebke Denecke
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Comparative Studies of East Asia and the Premodern World
World Literature
Comparative Global Humanities
History of Knowledge and History of Diplomacy
Politics of Cultural Heritage and Memory
M.A. Sinology, Philosophy, History of Medicine, Japanology
Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Wiebke Denecke | |
|---|---|
| Occupations | Literary scholar, author and academic |
| Known for | Premodern Literature and Thought of the Sinitic World (China, Japan, Korea) Comparative Studies of East Asia and the Premodern World World Literature Comparative Global Humanities History of Knowledge and History of Diplomacy Politics of Cultural Heritage and Memory |
| Spouse | Zoltán Spakovszky |
| Academic background | |
| Education | B.A. Sinology, Philosophy, History of Medicine M.A. Sinology, Philosophy, History of Medicine, Japanology Ph.D. East Asian Languages and Civilizations |
| Alma mater | Georg August University, Göttingen Harvard University, Cambridge |
| Thesis | Mastering Chinese Philosophy: A History of the Genre of Masters Literature Zhuzi Baijia from the Analects to the Han Feizi (2004) |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
Wiebke Denecke is a literary scholar, author, and academic who is a Professor of East Asian Literatures and the S. C. Fang Chair for Chinese Language and Culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).[1]
Denecke's research has focused on the classical literatures and philosophical traditions of China, Japan, Korea, and the Greco-Roman world, with interests in early thought traditions, philosophy, persuasion, rhetoric, poetry, poetics, court cultures, comparative studies of the premodern world and world literature.[2] Her publications include The Dynamics of Masters Literature and Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons. With an endowment from Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar L. Tang, she established The Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature with Oxford University Press and serves as its Founding Editor-in-Chief. Furthermore, she has served as Editor of The Norton Anthology of World Literature and The Norton Anthology of Western Literature and co-edits the book series East Asian Comparative Literature and Culture with Satoru Hashimoto and Zhang Longxi.[3]
Throughout her research, Denecke has examined literary traditions within multiliterate and cross-cultural contexts, reinterpreting East Asian traditions for contemporary relevance.
Before college, Denecke was trained in Latin and Greek studies in the humanistic Max-Planck-Gymnasium in Göttingen, and received a French baccalaureate in Paris. She received her academic training in Sinology, Japanology, Korean studies, philosophy, and the history of science, in her native Germany, as well as in Norway, Dalian, Taipei, Tokyo, Seoul, and Boston. She began her academic journey at Georg August University in Göttingen, earning a B.A. in Sinology, Philosophy, and the History of Medicine in 1994, while completing medical licensing examinations.[4] She attended medical school and trained as a doctor from 1991 to 1996, while pursuing an M.A. in Sinology, Philosophy, History of Medicine, and Japanology. She received her MA from the Georg August University in 1998,[5] and completed her Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University in 2004. Denecke has been a fellow of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and received scholarships during her undergraduate and doctoral studies.[6]
Career
After completing her education, Denecke became a Mellon Fellow at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University. She then served as Assistant Professor of Chinese and Japanese Literature at Barnard College/Columbia University from 2006 to 2010,[4] followed by a position as assistant and associate professor of Chinese, Japanese, and Comparative Literature at Boston University from 2010 to 2019,[7] where she was promoted to the rank of professor. During this period, she was also affiliated with the Department of Classical Studies and founded the BU Comparative Studies of the Premodern World Initiative with Sunil Sharma. Since 2021, she has served as Professor of East Asian Literatures at MIT's School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences,[8] and since 2023, she has held the S. C. Fang Chair for Chinese Language and Culture.[9]
Denecke served as an advisory board member at the Institute for World Literature, and as a member of the executive council for the International Comparative Literature Association from 2013 to 2016.[10] Since 2019, she has been an expert for the European Science Foundation's College of Expert Reviewers and a member of the international advisory board for the "Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective" Cluster of Excellence in Berlin.[11] She leads the Comparative Global Humanities Initiative at MIT.[12]
Works
Denecke authored The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi, which examined early Chinese "Masters Literature", known as Chinese philosophy in the West. She argued that taking the indigenous Chinese categorization of these texts as Masters Literature seriously offers new understandings of both Chinese thought and Western philosophy. Ralph Weber of Europa Institut praised the book, noting that "Denecke's close readings often bear the character of out-of-competition personal notes." He also praised how, behind her personal notes, there is a hidden purpose aimed at making a significant impact, reshaping disciplinary boundaries and taxonomies.[13] Her second book Classical World Literatures: Sino-Japanese and Greco-Roman Comparisons compared how early Japanese and Roman authors developed their literary traditions through and against the established works of China and Greece. In his review for the Journal of Asian Studies, Alexander Beecroft praised the book stating "any review of Wiebke Denecke's recent Classical World Literatures must begin by celebrating the unique and groundbreaking contribution this book makes to cross-cultural studies."[14]
Denecke has co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Classical Chinese Literature and a three-volume revisionary literary history of Japan titled A New History of Japanese "Letterature" (日本「文」学史). The third volume is a comparative literary history of China, Japan, and Korea. Additionally, she has served as an Editor for A Companion to World Literature, which includes essays from scholars on key literary topics. Since 2008, she has been part of the editorial team for the Norton Anthology of World Literature, which has featured selections of literary works. In 2024, it was released as an e-book, accompanied by audio-visual materials from the editors.[15][16]
Denecke is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of The Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature, a bilingual translation series presenting three millennia of classical literature from East Asia's Sinitic world to contemporary readers.[17][14]