Derk bodde biography of christopher

His translation of the complete work was published in Bodde retired in and was a vice president of the American Oriental Society from to His research on Chinese philosophy and history remains highly valued and influential in the field. Derk Bodde A famous American sinologist, historian of China, and translator. Date of Birth: Contact About Privacy.

That is, he cannot get along without the " and. As Bodde ruefully notes, it was ignored by subsequent Analects translators. The only exception was the Old Harvard fixture James Ware Harvard professorships were hereditary at this periodwhose translation reads "The Master rarely spoke of profit; his attachment was to fate and to Manhood-at-its-best.

This, like the preceding, addresses an important problem, though without achieving a notable advance toward its solution. His years in Peking had as their chief result the successful translations of works by the Manchu Tun Li-ch'en "Annual Customs," and most consequentially, the Chinese philosopher Fung Yulan "History of Chinese Philosophy," v1 He also met Duyvendak, then visiting Peking, and from that meeting followed an invitation to Leiden.

This was probably Bodde's most promising venture into original research. Unfortunately, he took the wrong side of one of Sinology's most famous directionality problems, the two versions of Li Sz's "bookburning" memorial, thus missing a chance to get Sinology some 80 years ahead of where it then was. He emerged from his perhaps too brief experience of the European tradition to embark on a career at the University of Pennsylvaniafor which his chief preparation was extensive Chinese contact and a certain literary sympathy.

Derk bodde biography of christopher

WW2 had already broken out in the East in ; it reached America in During its course, Bodde worked for the US Office of Strategic Services, producing reports on various aspects of Chinese culture; these reports were meant as background information for policy. In the immediate postwar years, he was one of the first round of Fulbright Fellowship recipients.

His Fellowship year in Peking, which he devoted to translating the second volume of Fung Yulan's History of Chinese Philosophy, also gave him a front row seat at the Communist takeover, a spectacle which George Kennedy had declined in advance. Bodde's stay led to his book Peking Diary Another Russian, Peter Boodberg of Berkeley, gave the work points here and there, but also noted that the evidence for Tolstoy's concern with the Chinese ethos.

So much more deplorable is Bodde's own uncritical acceptance of hints and tentative conclusions by the same uninspiring annotators or by other informants on points crucial to his argument and the development of his theme. This grievously affects both his acumen as a Sinologue and his understanding of the genesis of Tolstoy's Sinophilia.

Bodde's early contact with Chinese customs and beliefs emerged years later as Myths of Ancient Chinaregarded by those in a position to know as an often insightful work. A second strand that recurs throughout his publications was already visible in a student contribution to T'ien Hsia Monthly, "The Attitude Toward Science and Scientific Method in Ancient China," and was perhaps further stimulated by contact with the Leiden school.

This is the question of law and administration. Bodde's contribution to the Oppenheimer-inspired Conference on Feudalism, held at Princeton inand later issuing as Coulborn edFeudalism in Historywas not distinguished by any notable analytical acumen. Comparative historically speaking, it left that treacherous topic perhaps a little worse off than before.

A later attempt on more modern administrative material was more successful. It called chiefly for his translation skills, with the interpretation supplied by an expert collaborator, Clarence Morris. It appeared as Law in Imperial China in A final venture into law, this time natural law, occurred on Bodde's retirement inwhen he went to Cambridge for three years in residence at Joseph Needham's enterprise, with access to the formidable library Needham had there assembled, in order to produce a book that would answer Needham's original main question about China: Why, with all its technological achievements, had China never achieved a scientific revolution?

Bodde returned to Philadelphia at the end of his stay thinking that his work needed only editorial polishing to be accepted as the final stone in Needham's edifice. It was not to be. Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaUnited States. Honors [ edit ]. See also [ edit ]. Notes [ edit ]. Retrieved References [ edit ]. Authority control databases. Toggle the table of contents.

Derk Bodde.