Thorsten J. Pattberg

Thorsten J. Pattberg

Research Fellow, Peking University

Dr. Thorsten J. Pattberg (裴德思 Pei Desi) is a German writer, linguist, and cultural critic. 

rn

He attended Edinburgh University, Fudan University, Tokyo University, and Harvard University, and earned his doctorate degree from The Institute of World Literature at Peking University. He studied under the guiding stars of Ji Xianlin, Gu Zhengkun, and Tu Weiming, whom he considers his spiritual masters. 

Dr. Pattberg is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo; and a former Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, Peking University. He is the author of four monographs 'The East-West dichotomy,' 'Shengren,' 'Holy Confucius,' and 'Inside Peking University,' and some of his representative articles are 'Language hegemony – It’s shengren, stupid!,' 'Long into the West’s dragon business,' 'China: Lost in Translation,' and 'The end of translation.' 

In the Chinese Zodiac, the horse symbolized high expectations, performance, and stubbornness. What better occasion than this to talk about the heavy work load that’s awaiting China’s leaders, economists, and […]
The Cyclops Polyphemus as a Metaphor for Western Civilization and its Linear Way of Reasoning “The Greeks only understand theories, but the Chinese are the people who own the technologies.” […]
Red-hot news Jan 26 – Beijing has sent another activist, Xu Zhiyong, to prison. He fought against corruption and social injustice. Washington and Brussels protested vehemently on Sunday, and on […]
A German top official with the Goethe-Institute in Shanghai once remarked that “marrying a Chinese woman will make you rich.” This statement was soon retracted, and the man repatriated, but […]
“Underdeveloped,” “immature,” “effeminate” – such adjectives from the life-sciences were often used to describe East-Asian cultures in the 20th century. By erroneously seeing ‘culture’ as an organic, living entity -a common metaphor […]
“Now, working elbow to elbow with billionaires, I was a giant fireball of greed.” –Sam Polk BREAK it down: Obscenely rich people from 2013 meet in Davos, Switzerland, to discuss […]
During the age of colonialism, Western powers conquered the people of Asia and objectified their women. This is well documented in literature, film, and scholarship: Here the dominant, masculine West; […]