PROF. RICHARD J. SMITH – CHINA HISTORIAN &
I CHING SCHOLAR:

«My main project at present is a book on the evolution and "globalization" of the Yijing (also I Ching or Classic of Changes). Most of my research so far in both primary and secondary sources has centered on the development of the Yijing in China from ancient times to the present, its far-reaching cultural significance, its spread to other parts of Asia (mainly Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Tibet), its use as an evangelical tool by the Jesuit missionaries and their supporters in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (both in China and in Europe), and its eventual transmission to the rest of the world (including the Americas) during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among other things, I am interested in how the Yijing became a "classic," and how it might be compared to other "classics" of world literature - such as the Hebrew Torah, the Christian Bible, the Muslim Qu'ran and the Hindu Vedas in terms of its global spread and the hermeneutical strategies that helped to «domesticate» it.»


SELECTED PUBLICATIONS ON THE I CHING >