Home
Synapses are located in our central nervous system where nerve cells connect with each other. “Sin-aps” aims at making connections in our research which bring Chinese studies closer to the world of numbers.
Since the 1st of February 2021 Prof. Dr. Andrea Bréard is holder of the Chair for Sinology with a Focus on the Intellectual and Cultural History of China (Alexander von Humboldt-Professor) and Director of the IKGF (International Consortium for Research in the Humanities “Fate, Freedom and Prognostication”). Her research interests lie at the intersection of the mathematical sciences and sinology, both in history and in present times. Generously supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation her team conducts research on quantification in China (and its global repercussions), the epistemological aspects of algorithmic mathematics and their cultural transformations, as well as numerical techniques of prediction.
During one month, in March 2024, Prof. Andrea Bréard will be Visiting Professor at the Centre de recherches historiques (CRH) of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She will give four seminars during her stay:
1. Séminaire de Pablo Blitstein et Alessandro Stanziani,...
The Journal of the European Association for Chinese Studies has opened a call for papers for a special issue on "Ciphering and Ruling China’s Population", guest-edited by Andrea Bréard and Stefan Christ. The call is in relation with the publication of papers presented at our July 2022 conference on ...
The journal Technology and Language has launched a new call for contributions that appeals to the interests not only of philosophers, linguists, and literary scholars, but also of cultural studies, biomimetics, mathematics and engineering.
“Translation - Theory and Technology” (deadline: Oct 5, 2...
Conceptualizing ‘One’ (一): Working Towards a ‘Unified’ Understanding
Similar to many languages in the world, numbers display a variety of meanings in Chinese and other East Asian languages that borrowed the characters associated with them from Han China. As Marcel Granet (1934) who discusses num...