Currents of the Ming: Commercial, Intellectual, and Ecological Exchanges in a Globalizing World

Long before the modern era of globalization, the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) was actively reshaping the world economy, intellectual landscapes, and the natural environment. The RAS Summer School invites you to look beyond emperors and armies to discover how merchants, missionaries, and mariners connected China to the globe. This four-part series explores the massive "inflows and outflows" of silver, exotic spices, revolutionary ideas, and botanical imports that transformed the Ming dynasty and laid the foundations of our modern, interconnected world.

Part 4: Maps, Maths, and Missionaries

What happens when European science meets Confucian humanism? In our final session, explore the profound intellectual collision between Jesuit missionaries and Ming scholar-officials. We will unpack how figures like Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi translated not just words, but worldviews, bringing European hydraulics, geometry, and a shocking new map of a spherical earth to the Ming court. We will also explore the reverse flow of ideas, seeing how translated Confucian texts reached Europe and influenced the Enlightenment. Join us to debate the limits and triumphs of this extraordinary cross-cultural dialogue.