01
Divination and prognostication
How people have read signs, uncertainty, and the future in Chinese intellectual traditions.
Research
Research in Chinese intellectual history
Michael Lackner’s work studies Chinese intellectual history through divination, classical learning, and the movement of ideas across languages and cultures.
02
Song-dynasty classical learning
The interpretation, transmission, and political significance of the classical tradition.
03
Sino-Western exchange
The movement of language, philosophy, and ideas between China and Europe from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.
Fields of inquiry
Questions across history, language, and knowledge
- Divination and prognostication in China
- Classical studies in the Song dynasty
- Sino-Western cross-cultural transfer (language, philosophy, history of ideas), 16th–20th centuries
- Chinese assertions of identity (from late imperial China to the 20th century)
- History of political thought in China
Languages
Research across traditions
- Active
- German, English, French, Chinese, Italian, Spanish
- Reading
- Latin, Russian